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PLAY-MAKING 


PL  AY- MAKING 


A  MANUAL  OF  CRAFTSMANSHIP 


BY 


WILLIAM   ARCHER 


BOSTON 
SMALL,  MAYNARD  AND  COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 


COPYRIGHT,  1912 

By  SMALL,  MAYNARD  AND  COMPANY 
(INCORPORATED) 


Published,  May,  1912 
Second  Printing,  July,  1912 
Third  Printing,  April,  1913 
Fourth  Printing,  April,  1914 
Fifth  Printing,  August,  1915 
Sixth  Printing,  August,  1916 
Seventh  Printing,  June,  1918 
Eighth  Printing,  December,  1919 

Ninth  Printing,  March,  1921 

Tenth  Printing,  January,  1922 

Eleventh  Printing,  February,  1923 

Twelfth  Printing,  November,  1923 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 

Bound  by  Boston  Bookbinding  Co.,  Cambridge,  Mass.,  UJS^l. 
Press  of  Geo.  H.  Ellis  Co.  (Inc.)  Boston,  Mass., 


TO 

BRANDER  MATTHEWS 

GUIDE  PHILOSOPHER  AND  FRIEND 


PREFATORY  NOTE 

THIS  book  is,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  en- 
tirely new.  No  considerable  portion  of  it  has 
already  appeared,  although  here  and  there  short 
passages  and  phrases  from  articles  of  bygone  years 
are  embedded  —  indistinguishably,  I  hope  —  in  the 
text.  I  have  tried,  wherever  it  was  possible,  to 
select  my  examples  from  published  plays,  which  the 
student  may  read  for  himself,  and  so  check  my 
observations.  One  reason,  among  others,  which 
led  me  to  go  to  Shakespeare  and  Ibsen  for  so  many 
of  my  illustrations,  was  that  they  are  the  most 
generally  accessible  of  playwrights. 

If  the  reader  should  feel  that  I  have  been  over 
lavish  in  the  use  of  footnotes,  I  have  two  excuses 
to  allege.  The  first  is  that  more  than  half  of  the 
following  chapters  were  written  on  shipboard  and 
in  places  where  I  had  scarcely  any  books  to  refer 
to;  so  that  a  great  deal  had  to  be  left  to  subsequent 
enquiry  and  revision.  The  second  is  that  several 
of  my  friends,  dramatists  and  others,  have  been 
kind  enough  to  read  my  manuscript,  and  to  suggest 
valuable  afterthoughts. 

LONDON 
January,  1912 


CONTENTS 

BOOK   I 

PROLOGUE 

PAGE 

I     INTRODUCTORY    3 

II     THE  CHOICE  OF  A  THEME 16 

III  DRAMATIC  AND  UNDRAMATIC 28 

IV  THE  ROUTINE  OF  COMPOSITION 53 

V     DRAMATIS  PERSONS 74 

BOOK   II 

THE   BEGINNING 

VI     THE  POINT  OF  ATTACK  :    SHAKESPEARE  AND 

IBSEN 85 

VII     EXPOSITION  :    ITS  END  AND  ITS  MEANS    .    .  1 1 1 

VIII    THE  FIRST  ACT 131 

IX     "CURIOSITY"  AND  "INTEREST" 156 

X    FORESHADOWING,  NOT  FORESTALLING.    ...  175 

BOOK  III 

THE   MIDDLE 

XI    TENSION  AND  ITS  SUSPENSION 189 

XII     PREPARATION  :   THE  FINGER-POST 201 

XIII  THE  OBLIGATORY  SCENE 225 

XIV  THE  PERIPETY 260 

XV     PROBABILITY,  CHANCE,  AND  COINCIDENCE.    .  275 

XVI     LOGIC 296 

XVII     KEEPING  A  SECRET 305 


x  CONTENTS 

BOOK   IV 

THE   END 

PAGE 
XVIII     CLIMAX  AND  ANTICLIMAX 321 

XIX    CONVERSION 331 

XX    BLIND- ALLEY  THEMES  —  AND  OTHERS.    .    .    340 
XXI    THE  FULL  CLOSE 352 

BOOK  V 

EPILOGUE 

XXII    CHARACTER  AND  PSYCHOLOGY 371 

XXIII     DIALOGUE  AND  DETAILS 381 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 409 

INDEX 413 


BOOK  I 
PROLOGUE 


PLAY-MAKING 

I 

INTRODUCTORY 

^  INHERE  are  no  rules  for  writing  a  play.  It  is 
•**  easy,  indeed,  to  lay  down  negative  recom- 
mendations  —  to  instruct  the  beginner  how  not  to 
do  it.  But  most  of  these  "  dont's "  are  rather 
obvious;  and  those  which  are  not  obvious  are 
apt  to  be  questionable.  It  is  certain,  for  instance, 
that  if  you~want  your  play  to  be  acted,  anywhere  /  J 
else  than  in  China,  you  must  not  plan  it  in  six- 
teen acts  of  an  hour  apiece ;  but  where  is  the  tyro 
who  needs  a  text-book  to  tell  him  that?  On  the 
other  hand,  most  theorists  of  to-day  would 
it  an  axiom  that  you  must  not  let  your  characters 
narrate  their  circumstances,  or  expound  their  mo- 
tives, in  speeches  addressed,  either  directly  to  the 
audience,  or  ostensibly  to  their  solitary  selves.  But 
when  we  remember  that,  of  all  dramatic  openings, 
there  is  none  finer  than  that  which  shows  Richard 
Plantagenet  limping  down  the  empty  stage  to 
say  — 

"  Now  is  the  winter  of  our  discontent 
Made  glorious  summer  by  this  sun  of  York; 
And  all  the  clouds  that  lour'd  upon  pur  house 
In  the  deep  bosom  of  the  ocean  buried  "  — 


4  PLAY-MAKING 

we  feel  that  the  axiom  requires  large  qualifications. 
There  are  no  absolute  rules,  in  fact,  except  such  as 
are  dictated  by  the  plainest  common  sense.  Aris- 
totle himself  did  not  so  much  dogmatize  as  analyse, 
classify,  and  generalize  from,  the  practices  of  the 
Attic  dramatists.  He  said,  "  yjouha^M>gtter " 
rather  than  "  you  must."  It  waTTTo7ace,inan 
age  of  deep  dramatic  decadence,  who  re-stated  the 
pseudo- Aristotelian  formulas  of  the  Alexandrians 
as  though  they  were  unassailable  dogmas  of 
art. 

How  comes  it,  then,  that  there  is  a  constant 
demand  for  text-books  of  the  art  and  craft  of 
drama  ?  How  comes  it  that  so  many  people  —  and 
1  among  the  number  —  who  could  not  write  a  play 
to  save  their  lives,  are  eager  to  tell  others  how  to 
do  so?  And,  stranger  still,  how  comes  it  that  so 
many  people  are  willing  to  sit  at  the  feet  of  these 
instructors?  It  is  not  so  with  the  novel.  Popular 
is  that  form  of  literature,  guides  to  novel- 
writing,  if  they  exist  at  all,  are  comparatively  rare. 
Why  are  people  possessed  with  the  idea  that  the 
art  of  dramatic  fiction  differs  from  that  of 
narrative  fiction,  in  that  it  can  and  must  be 
taught  ? 

The  reason  is  clear,  and  is  so  far  valid  as  to 
excuse,  if  not  to  justify,  such  works  as  the  pres- 
ent. The  novel,  as  soon  as  it  is  legibly  written, 
exists,  for  what  it  is  worth.  The  page  of  black 
and  white  is  the  sole  intermediary  between  the 
creative  and  the  perceptive  brain.  Even  the  act 


INTRODUCTORY  5 

of  printing  merely  widens  the  possible  appeal:  it 
does  not  alter  its  nature.  But  the  drama,  before 
it  can  make  its  proper  appeal  at  all,  must  be  run 
through  a  highly  complex  piece  of  mechanism  — 
the  theatre  —  the  precise  conditions  of  which  are, 
to  mostlbeginners,  a  fascinating  mystery.  While 
they  feel  a  strong  inward  conviction  of  their 
ability  to  master  it,  they  are  possessed  with  an 
idea,  often  exaggerated  and  superstitious,  of  its 
technical  complexities.  Having,  as  a  rule,  little 
or  no  opportunity  of  closely  examining  or  ex- 
perimenting with  it,  they  are  eager  to  "  read  it 
up,"  as  they  might  any  other  machine.  That  is 
the  case  of  the  average  aspirant,  who  has  neither 
the  instinct  of  the  theatre  fully  developed  in  his 
blood,  nor  such  a  congenital  lack  of  that  instinct 
as  to  be  wholly  inapprehensive  of  any  technical 
difficulties  or  problems.  The  intelligent  novice, 
standing  between  these  extremes,  tends,  as  a  rule, 
to  overrate  the  efficacy  of  theoretical  instruction, 
and  to  expect  of  analytic  criticism  more  than  it 
has  to  give. 

There  is  thus  a  fine  opening  for  pedantry  on 
the  one  side,  and  quackery  on  the  other,  to  rush 
^  in.     The  pedant,  in  this  context,  is  he  who  con- 
structs a  set  of  rules  from  metaphysical  or  psycho- 
logical first  principles,  and  professes  to  bring  down 
a   dramatic   decalogue    from   the    Sinai   of   some 
lecture-room  in  the  University  of  Weissnichtwo. 
-  'Hie  quack,  on  the  other  hand,  is  he  who  general- 
izes from  the  worst  practices  of  "the  most  vulgar 


6  PLAY-MAKING 

theatrical  journeymen,  and^  has  no  higher  ambi- 
tion  than  to  interpret  the  oracles  of  the  box-office. 
If  he  succeeded  in  so  doing,  his  function  would 
not  be  wholly  despicable;  but  as  he  is  generally 
devoid  of  insight,  and  as,  moreover,  the  oracles 
of  the  box-office  vary  from  season  to  season,  if 
not  from  month  to  month,  his  lucubrations  are 
about  as  valuable  as  those  of  Zadkiel  or  Old 
Moore.1 

What,  then,  is  the  excuse  for  such  a  discussion 
as  is  here  attempted?  Having  admitted  that  there 
are  no  rules  for  dramatic  composition,  and  that 
the  quest  of  such  rules  is  apt  to  result  either  in 
pedantry  or  quackery,  why  should  I  myself  set 
forth  upon  so  fruitless  and  foolhardy  an  enter- 
prise? It  is  precisely  because  I  am  alive  to  its 
dangers  that  I  have  some  hope  of  avoiding  them. 
Rules  there  are  none;  but  it  does  not  follow  that 


1  It  is  against  "  technic  "  in  this  sense  of  the  term  that  the 
hero  of  Mr.  Howells's  admirable  novel,  The  Story  of  a  Play, 
protests  in  vigorous  and  memorable  terms.  "  They  talk," 
says  Maxwell,  "  about  a  knowledge  of  the  stage  as  if  it  were 
a  difficult  science,  instead  of  a  very  simple  piece  of  mechanism 
whose  limitations  and  possibilities  anyone  may  see  at  a  glance. 
All  that  their  knowledge  of  it  comes  to  is  claptrap,  pure  and 
simple.  .  .  .  They  think  that  their  exits  and  entrances  are 
great  matters  and  that  they  must  come  on  with  such  a  speech, 
and  go  off  with  another ;  but  it  is  not  of  the  least  importance 
how  they  come  or  go,  if  they  have  something  interesting  to 
say  or  do."  Maxwell,  it  must  be  remembered,  is  speaking  of 
technic  as  expounded  by  the  star  actor,  who  is  shilly-shallying 
—  as  star  actors  will  —  over  the  production  of  his  play.  He 
would  not,  in  his  calmer  moments,  deny  that  it  is  of  little  use 
to  have  something  interesting  to  say,  unless  you  know  how  to 
say  it  interestingly.  Such  a  denial  would  simply  be  the  nega- 
tion of  the  very  idea  of  art 


INTRODUCTORY  7 

some  of  the  thousands  who  are  fascinated  by  the 
art  of  the  playwright  may  not  profit  by  having 
their  attention  called,  in  a  plain  and  practical  way, 
to  some  of  its  problems  and  possibilities.  I  have 
myself  felt  the  need  of  some  such  handbook,  when 
would-be  dramatists  have  come  to  me  for  advice 
and  guidance.  It  is  easy  to  name  excellent  treat- 
ises on  the  drama;  but  the  aim  of  such  books  is 
to  guide  the  judgment  of  the  critic  rather  than 
the  creative  impulse  of  the  playwright.  There  are 
also  valuable  collections  of  dramatic  criticisms ;  but 
any  practical  hints  that  they  may  contain  are  scat- 
tered and  unsystematic.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
advice  one  is  apt  to  give  to  beginners  —  "  Go  to 
the  theatre;  study  its  conditions  and  mechanism 
for  yourself  "  —  is,  in  fact,  of  very  doubtful  value. 
It  might,  in  many  cases,  be  wiser  to  warn  the  as- 
pirant to  keep  himself  unspotted  from  the  play- 
house. To  send  him  there  is  to  imperil,  on  the 
one  hand,  his  originality  of  vision,  on  the  other, 
his  individuality  of  method.  He  may  fall  under 
the  influence  of  some  great  master,  and  see  life 
only  through  his  eyes;  or  he  may  become  so 
habituated  to  the  current  tricks  of  the  theatrical 
trade  as  to  lose  all  sense  of  their  conventionality 
and.  falsity,  and  find  himself,  in  the  end,  better 
fitted  to  write  what  I  have  called  a  quack  hand- 
book than  a  living  play.  It  would  be  ridiculous, 
of  course,  to  urge  an  aspirant  positively  to  avoid 
the  theatre;  but  the  common  advice  to  steep  him- 
self in  it  is  beset  with  dangers. 


8  PLAY-MAKING 

It  may  be  asked  why,  if  I  have  any  guidance 
and  help  to  give,  I  do  not  take  it  myself,  and 
write  plays  instead  of  instructing  others  in  the 
art.  This  is  a  variant  of  an  ancient  and  fallacious 
jibe  against  criticism  in  general.  It  is  quite  true 
that  almost  all  critics  who  are  worth  their  salt  are 
"  stickit "  artists.  Assuredly,  if  I  had  the  power, 
I  should  write  plays  instead  of  writing  about  them ; 
but  one  may  have  a  great  love  for  an  art,  and  some 
insight  into  its  principles  and  methods,  without 
the  innate  faculty  required  for  actual  production. 
On  the  other  hand,  there  is  nothing  to  show  that, 
if  I  were  a  creative  artist,  I  should  be  a  good  men- 
tor for  beginners.  An  accomplished  painter  may 
be  the  best  teacher  of  painters;  but  an  accom- 
plished dramatist  is  scarcely  the  best  guide  for 
dramatists.  He  cannot  analyse  his  own  practice, 
and  discriminate  between  that  in  it  which  is  of 

r universal  validity,  and  that  which  may  be  good 
for  him,  but  would  be  bad  for  any  one  else.  If 
he  happened  to  be  a  great  man,  he  would  inevi- 
tably, even  if  unconsciously,  seek  to  impose  upon 
his  disciples  his  individual  attitude  towards  life; 
if  he  were  a  lesser  man,  he  would  teach  them  only 
his  tricks.  But  dramatists  do  not,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  take  pupils  or  write  handbooks.1  When  they 
expound  their  principles  of  art,  it  is  generally  in 
answer  to,  or  in  anticipation  of,  criticism  —  with 

1  A  dramatist  of  my  acquaintance  adds  this  footnote : 
"  But,  by  the  Lord !  they  have  to  give  advice.  I  believe  I 
write  more  plays  of  other  people's  than  I  do  of  my  own." 


INTRODUCTORY  9 

"MX**.  $ 

a  view,  in  short,  not  to  helping"  others,  but  to  de- 

lending-  themselves!     If  beginners,  then,  are  to**1**  ** 

find  any  systematic  guidance,  they  must  turn  to 
the  critics,  not  to  the  dramatists;  and  no  person 
of  common  sense  holds  it  a  reproach  to  a  critic 
to  tell  him  that  he  is  a  "  stickit "  playwright. 

If  questions  are  worth  discussing  at  all,  they 
are  worth  discussing  gravely.  When,  in  the  fol- 
lowing pages,  I  am  found  treating  with  all  solem- 
nity matters  of  apparently  trivial  detail,  I  beg  the 
reader  to  believe  that  very  possibly  I  do  not  in  my 
heart  overrate  their  importance.  One  thing  is 
certain,  and  must  be  emphasized  from  the  outset: 
namely,  that  if  any  part  of  the  dramatist's  art 
can  be  taught,  it  is  only  a  comparatively  mechan- 
ical and  formal  part  —  the  art  of  structure.  One 
may  'learn  how  to  tell  a  story  in  good  dramatic 
form:  how  to  develop  and  marshal  it  in  such  a 
way  as  best  to  seize  and  retain  the  interest  of  a 
theatrical  audience.  But  no  teaching  or  study  can 
enable  a  man  to  choose  or  invent  a  good  story, 
and  much  less  to  do  that  which  alone  lends  dig- 
nity to  dramatic  story-telling  —  to  observe  and 
portray  human  character.  This  is  the  aim  and 
end  of  all  serious  drama;  and  it  will  be  apt  to 
appear  as  though,  in  the  following  pages,  this  aim 
and  end  were  ignored.  In  reality  it  is  not  so.  If 
I  hold  comparatively  mechanical  questions  of  pure 
craftsmanship  to  be  worth  discussing,  it  is  because 
I  believe  that  only  by  aid  of  competent  craftsman- 
ship can  the  greatest  genius  enable  his  creations 


io  PLAY-MAKING 

to  live  and  breathe  upon  the  stage.  The  profound- 
est  insight  into  human  nature  and  destiny  cannot 
find  valid  expression  through  the  medium  of  the 
theatre  without  some  understanding  of  the  peculiar 
art  of  dramatic  construction.  Some  people  are 
born  with  such  an  instinct  for  this  art,  that  a  very 
little  practice  renders  them  masters  of  it.  Some 
people  are  born  with  a  hollow  in  their  cranium 
where  the  bump  of  drama  ought  to  be.  But  be- 
tween these  extremes,  as  I  said  before,  there  are 
many  people  with  moderately  developed  and  culti- 
vable faculty;  and  it  is  these  who,  I  trust,  may 
find  some  profit  in  the  following  discussions.1  Let 
them  not  forget,  however,  that  the  topics  treated 
of  are  merely  the  indispensable  rudiments  of  the 
art,  and  are  not  for  a  moment  to  be  mistaken  for 
its  ultimate  and  incommunicable  secrets.  Beetho- 
ven could  not  have  composed  the  Ninth  Symphony 
without  a  mastery  of  harmony  and  counterpoint; 
but  there  are  thousands  of  masters  of  harmony  and 
counterpoint  who  could  not  compose  the  Ninth 
Symphony. 

The  art  of  theatrical  story-telling  is  necessarily 
relative  to  the  audience  to  whom  the  story  is  to 
be  told.  One  must  assume  an  audience  of  a  cer- 
tain status  and  characteristics  before  one  can  ra- 
tionally discuss  the  best  methods  of  appealing  to 

1  It  may  be  hoped,  too,  that  even  the  accomplished  dram- 
atist may  take  some  interest  in  considering  the  reasons  for 
things  which  he  does,  or  does  not  do,  by  instinct. 


INTRODUCTORY  n 

its  intelligence  and  its  sympathies.  The  audience 
I  have  throughout  assumed  is  drawn  from  what 
may  be  called  the  ordinary  educated  public  of  Lon- 
don and  New  York.  It  is  not  an  ideal  or  a  specially 
selected  audience;  but  it  is  somewhat  above  the 
average  of  the  theatre-going  public,  that  average 
being  sadly  pulled  down  by  the  myriad  frequenters 
of  musical  farce  -and  absolutely  worthless  melo- 
drama. It  is  such  an  audience  as  assembles  every 
night  at,  say,  the  half-dozen  best  theatres  of  each 
city.  A  peculiarly  intellectual  audience  it  certainly 
is  not.  I  gladly  admit  that  theatrical  art  owes 
much,  in  both  countries,  to  voluntary  organizations 
of  intelligent  or  would-be  intelligent 1  playgoers, 
who  have  combined  to  provide  themselves  with 
forms  of  drama  which  specially  interest  them,  and 
do  not  attract  the  great  public.  But  I  am  entirely 
convinced  that  thej^rama._rejiounces  its  chief  privi- 
lege and  glory  when  it  waives  its  claim  to  be  a 
popular  art,  and  is  content  to  address  itself  to 
coteries,  however  "  high-browed."  Shakespeare 
did  not  write  for  a  coterie :  yet  he  produced  some 
works  of  considerable  subtlety  and  profundity. 
Moliere  was  popular  with  the  ordinary  parterre 
of  his  day:  yet  his  plays  have  endured  for  over 
two  centuries,  and  the  end  of  their  vitality  does 
not  seem  to  be  in  sight.  Ibsen  did  not  write  for  a 
coterie,  though  special  and  regrettable  circum- 

1  This  is  not  a  phrase  of  contempt.  The  would-be  intelli- 
gent playgoer  is  vastly  to  be  preferred  to  the  playgoer  who 
makes  a  boast  of  his  unintelligence. 


12  PLAY-MAKING 

stances  have  made  him,  in  England,  something  of 
a  coterie-poet.  In  Scandinavia,  in  Germany,  even 
in  America,  he  casts  his  spell  over  great  audiences, 
if  not  through  long  runs  (which  are  a  vice  of  the 
merely  commercial  theatre),  at  any  rate  through 
frequently-repeated  representations.  So  far  as  I 
know,  history  records  no  instance  of  a  playwrigKT 
failing  to  gain  the  ear  of  his  contemporaries,  and 
then  being  recognized  and  appreciated  by  posterity. 
Alfred  de  Musset  might,  perhaps,  be  cited  as  a 
case  in  point;  but  he  did  not  write  with  a  view 
to  the  stage,  and  made  no  bid  for  contemporary 
popularity.  As  soon  as  it  occurred  to  people  to 
produce  his  plays,  they  were  found  to  be  delight- 
ful. Let  no  playwright,  then,  make  it  his  boast 
that  he  cannot  disburden  his  soul  within  the  three 
hours'  limit,  and  cannot  produce  plays  intelligible 
or  endurable  to  any  audience  but  a  band  of  adepts. 
A  popular  audience,  however,  does  not  necessarily 
mean  the  mere  riff-raff  of  the  theatrical  public. 
There  is  a  large  class  of  playgoers,  both  in  Eng- 
land and  America,  which  is  capable  of  appreciating 
/  work  of  a  high  intellectual  order,  if  only  it  does 
not  ignore  the  fundamental  conditions  of  theatrical 
presentation.  It  is  an  audience  of  this  class  that 
I  have  in  mind  throughout  the  following  pages; 
and  I  believe  that  a  playwright  who  despises  such 
an  audience  will  do  so  to  the  detriment,  not  only 
of  his  popularity  and  profits,  but  of  the  artistic 
quality  of  his  work. 

Some  people  may  exclaim :  "  Why  should  the 


INTRODUCTORY  13 

^H 

»  dramatist  concern  himself  about  his  audience? 
That  may  be  all  very  well  for  the  mere  journey- 
men of  the  theatre,  the  hacks  who  write  to  an 
actor-manager's  order  —  not  for  the  true  artist! 
He  has  a  soul  above  all  such  petty  considerations. 
Art,  to  him,  is  simply  self-expression.  He  writes 
to  please  himself,  and  has  no  tnought  of  currying 
favour  with  an  audience,  whether  intellectual  or 
idiotic."  To  this  I  reply  simply  that  to  an  artist 
of  this  way  of  thinking  I  have  nothing  to  say. 
He  has  a  perfect  right  to  express  himself  in  a 
whole  literature  of  so-called  plays,  which  may 
possibly  be  studied,  and  even  acted,  by  societies 
organized  to  that  laudable  end.  Bu^JJie.^drarjiatist 
wjio_j3eclares  his  end  to  be  mere  self-expression 
stultifies  himseii  in  that  very^  phrase]  The  painter 
may  paint,  the  sculptor  model,  Ithe  lyric  poet  sing, 
simply  to  please  himself,1  but  the  drama  has  no 
meaning  except  in  relation  to  an  audience.  It  is 
a  portrayal  of  life  by  means  of  a  mechanism  so 
devised  as  to  bring  it  home  to  a  considerable  num- 
ber of  people  assembled  in  a  given  place.  "The 
public,"  it  has  been  well  said,  "  constitutes  the 
theatre."  The  moment  a  playwright  confines  his 
work  within  the  two  or  three  hours'  limit  pre- 

1  In  all  the  arts,  however,  the  very  idea  of  craftsmanship 
implies  some  sort  of  external  precipient,  or,  in  other  words, 
some  sort  of  an  audience.  In  point  of  sheer  self-expression, 
a  child's  scrabblings  with  a  box  of  crayons  may  deserve  to 
rank  with  the  most  masterly  canvas  of  Velasquez  or  Ver- 
meer.  The  real  difference  between  the  dramatist  and  other 
artists,  is  that  they  can  be  their  own  audience,  in  a  sense  in 
which  he  cannot. 


14  PLAY-MAKING 

scribed  by  Western  custom  for  a  theatrical  per- 
formance, he  is  currying  favour  with  an  audience. 
That  limit  is  imposed  simply  by  the  physical  en- 
durance and  power  of  sustained  attention  that  can 
be  demanded  of  Western  human  beings  assembled 
in  a  theatre.  Doubtless  an  author  could  express 
himself  more  fully  and  more  subtly  if  he  ignored 
these  limitations ;  the  moment  he  submits  to  them, 
he  renounces  the  pretence  that  mere  self-expression 
is  his  aim.  I  know  that  there  are  haughty  souls 
who  make  no  such  submission,  and  express  them- 
selves in  dramas  which,  so  far  as  their  proportions 
are  concerned  might  as  well  be  epic  poems  or  his- 
torical romances.1  To  them,  I  repeat,  I  have  noth- 
ing to  say.  The  one  and  only  subject  of  the  fol- 
lowing discussions  is  the  best  method  of  fitting 
a  dramatic  theme  for  representation  before  an 
audience  assembled  in  a  theatre.  But  this,  be  it 
noted,  does  not  necessarily  mean  "  writing  down  " 
to  the  audience  in  question.  It  is  by  obeying,  not 
by  ignoring,  the  fundamental  conditions  of  his 
craft  that  the  dramatist  may  hope  to  lead  his 
Audience  upward  to  the  highest  intellectual  level 
which  he  himself  can  attain. 

These  pages,  in  short,  are  addressed  to  students 
of  play-writing  who  sincerely  desire  to  do  sound, 
artistic  work  under  the  conditions  and  limitations 
of  the  actual,  living  playhouse.  This  does  not 

*  Let  me  guard  against  the  possibility  that  this  might  be 
interpreted  as  a  sneer  at  The  Dynasts  —  a  great  work  by  a 
great  poet. 


INTRODUCTORY  15 

mean,  of  course,  that  they  ought  always  to  be 
studying  "  what  the  public  wants."  The  dramatist 
should  give  the  public  what  he  himself  wants  — 
but  in  such  form  as  to  make  it  comprehensible 
and  interesting  in  a  theatre. 


\ 


II 

THE   CHOICE   OF   A   THEME 

THE  first  step  towards  writing  a  play  is  mani- 
festly to  choosy  a  theme. 

Even  this  simple  statement,  however,  requires 
careful  examination  before  we  can  grasp  its  full 
import.  What,  in  the  first  place,  do  we  mean  by 
a  "  theme  "  ?  And,  secondly,  in  what  sense  can  we, 
or  ought  we  to,  "  choose  "  one? 

"  Theme "  may  mean  either  of  two  things : 
either  the  subject  of  a  play,  or  its  story-  The 
former  is,  perhaps,  its  proper  or  more  convenient 
sense.  The  theme  of  Romeo  and  Juliet  is  youthful 
love  crossed  by  ancestral  hate;  the  theme  of 
Othello  is  jealousy;  the  theme  of  Le  Tartufe  is 
hypocrisy;  the  theme  of  Caste  is  fond  hearts  and 
coronets;  the  theme  of  Getting  Married  is  getting 
married;  the  theme  of  Maternite  is  maternity. 
To  every  play  it  is  possible,  at  a  pinch,  to  assign 
a  theme;  but  in  many  plays  it  is  evident  that  no 
flieme  ^expressible  in  abstract  terms  was  present  to 
ylhe  author's  mind.  Nor  are  these  always  plays  of 
a  low  class.  It  is  only  by  a  somewhat  artificial 
process  of  abstraction  that  we  can  formulate  a 
theme  for  As  You  Like  It,  for  The  Way  of  the 
World,  or  for  Hedda  Gabler. 

16 


THE   CHOICE   OF   A    THEME        17 

The  question  now  arises:  ought  a  theme,  in  its 
abstract  form,  to  be  the  first  germ  of  a  play? 
Ought  the  dramatist  to  say,  "  Go  to,  I  will  write 
a  play  on  temperance,  or  on  woman's  suffrage,  or 
on  capital  and  labour,"  and  then  cast  about  for 
a  story  to  illustrate  his  theme?  This  is  a  possible, 
but  not  a  promising,  method  of  procedure!  A  story 
made  to  the  order  of  a  moral  concept  is  always  apt 
to  advertise  its  origin,  to  the  detriment  of  its  illu- 
srve"quairty. *  ff  a  play  is  to  be  a  moral  apologue 
at  all,  it  is  well  to  say  so  frankly  —  probably  in 
the  title  —  and  aim,  not  at  verisimilitude,  but  at 
neatness  and  appositeness  in  the  working  out  of 
the  fable.  The  French  proverbe  proceeds  on  this 
principle,  and  is  often  very  witty  and  charming.1 
A  good  example  in  English  is  A  Pair  of  Spectacles, 
by  Mr.  Sydney  Grundy,  founded  on  a  play  by 
Labiche.  In  this  bright  little  comedy  every  inci- 
dent and  situation  bears  upon  the  general  theme, 
and  pleases  us,  not  by  its  probability,  but  by  its 
ingenious  appropriateness.  The  dramatic  fable, 
in  fact,  holds  very  much  the  same  rank  in  drama 
as  the  narrative  fable  holds  in  literature  at  large. 
We  take  pleasure  in  them  on  condition  that  they 
be  witty,  and  that  they  do  not  pretend  to  be  what 
they  are  not. 

1  For  instance,  //  ne  faut  jurer  de  rien,  II  faut  qu'une  porte 
soit  ouverte  ou  fermee,  Un  bienfait  n'est  jamais  perdu. 
There  is  also  a  large  class  of  pieces  of  which  the  title, 
though  not  itself  a  proverb,  makes  direct  allusion  to  some 
fable  or  proverbial  saying:  for  example,  Les  Brebis  de 
Panurge,  La  Chasse  aux  Corbeaux,  La  Cigale  chez  les 
Fourmis. 


i8  PLAY-MAKING 

A  play  manifestly  suggested  by  a  theme  of  tem- 
porary interest  will  often  have  a  great  but  no  less 
temporary  success.  For  instance,  though  there  was 
a  good  deal  of  clever  character-drawing  in  An 
Englishman's  Home,  by  Major  du  Maurier,  the 
theme  was  so  evidently  the  source  and  inspiration 
of  the  play  that  it  will  scarcely  bear  revival.  In 
America,  where  the  theme  was  of  no  interest,  the 
play  failed. 

It  is  possible,  no  doubt,  to  name  excellent  plays 
in  which  the  theme,  in  all  probability,  preceded 
both  the  story  and  the  characters  in  the  author's 
mind.  Such  plays  are  most  of  M.  Brieux's;  such 
plays  are  Mr.  Galsworthy's  Strife  and  Justice.  The 
French  plays,  in  my  judgment,  suffer  artistically 
from  the  obtrusive  predominance  of  the  theme  — 
that  is  to  say,  the  abstract  element  —  over  the 
human  and  concrete  factors  in  the  composition. 
Mr.  Galsworthy's  more  delicate  and  unemphatic 
art  eludes  this  danger,  at  any  rate  in  Strife.  We 
do  not  remember  until  all  is  over  that  his  char- 
acters represent  classes,  and  his  action  is,  one  might 
almost  say,  a  sociological  symbol.  If,  then,  the 
theme  does,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  come  first  in 
the  author's  conception,  he  will  do  well  either  to 
make  it  patently  and  confessedly  dominant,  as  in 
the  proverbe,  or  to  take  care  that,  as  in  Strife, 
it  be  not  suffered  to  make  its  domination  felt, 
except  as  an  afterthought.1  No  outside  force 

*  I  learn,  on  the  best  authority,  that  I  am  wrong,  in  point 
of  fact,  as  to  the  origin  of  Strife.  The  play  arose  in  Mr. 


THE   CHOICE   OF   A   THEME        19 

should  appear  to  control  the  free  rhythm  of  the 
action. 

The  theme  may  sometimes  be,  not  an  idea,  an 
abstraction  or  a  principle,  but  rather  an  environ- 
ment, a  social  phenomenon  of  one  sort  or  another. 
The  author's  primary  object  in  such  a  case  is,  not 
to  portray  any  individual  character  or  tell  any 
definite  story,  but  to  transfer  to  the  stage  an  ani- 
mated picture  of  some  broad  aspect  or  phase  of 
life,  without  concentrating  the  interest  on  any  one 
figure  or  group.  There  are  theorists  who  would, 
by  definition,  exclude  from  the  domain  of  drama 
any  such  cinematograph-play,  as  they  would  prob- 
ably call  it;  but  we  shall  see  cause,  as  we  go  on, 
to  distrust  definitions,  especially  when  they  seek 
to  clothe  themselves  with  the  authority  of  laws. 
Tableau-plays  of  the  type  here  in  question  may 
even  claim  classical  precedent.  What  else  is  Ben 
Jonson's  Bartholomew  Fair?  What  else  is  Schil- 
ler's W  allensteins  Lager?  Amongst  more  recent 
plays,  Hauptmann's  Die  Welter  and  Gorky's 
Nachtasyl  are  perhaps  the  best  examples  of  the 
type.  The  drawback  of  such  themes  is,  not  that 
they  do  not  conform  to  this  or  that  canon  of 
art,  but  that  it  needs  an  exceptional  amount  of 

Galsworthy's  mind  from  his  actually  having  seen  in  conflict 
the  two  men  who  were  the  prototypes  of  Anthony  and  Rob- 
erts, and  thus  noted  the  waste  and  inefficacy  arising  from  the 
clash  of  strong  characters  unaccompanied  by  balance.  It  was 
accident  that  led  him  to  place  the  two  men  in  an  environment 
of  capital  and  labour.  In  reality,  both  of  them  were,  if  not 
capitalists,  at  any  rate  on  the  side  of  capital.  This  interesting 
correction  of  fact  does  not  invalidate  the  theory  above  stated. 


20  PLAY-MAKING 

knowledge  and  dramaturgic  skill  to  handle  them 
successfully.  It  is  far  easier  to  tell  a  story  on 
the  stage  than  to  paint  a  picture,  and  few  play- 
wrights can  resist  the  temptation  to  foist  a  story 
upon  their  picture,  thus  marring  it  by  an  inhar- 
monious intrusion  of  melodrama  or  farce.  This 
has  often  been  done  upon  deliberate  theory,  in  the 
belief  that  no  play  can  exist,  or  can  attract  play- 
goers, without  a  definite  and  more  or  less  exciting 
plot.  Thus  the  late  James  A.  Herne  inserted  into 
a  charming  idyllic  picture  of  rural  life,  entitled 
Shore  Acres,  a  melodramatic  scene  in  a  lighthouse, 
which  was  hopelessly  out  of  key  with  the  rest  of 
the  play.  The  dramatist  who  knows  any  particular 
phase  of  life  so  thoroughly  as  to  be  able  to  transfer 
its  characteristic  incidents  to  the  stage,  may  be  ad- 
vised to  defy  both  critical  and  managerial  preju- 
dice, and  give  his  tableau-play  just  so  much  of  story 
as  may  naturally  and  inevitably  fall  within  its 
limits.  One  of  the  most  admirable  and  enthralling 
scenes  I  ever  saw  on  any  stage  was  that  of  the 
Trafalgar  Square  suffrage  meeting  in  Miss  Eliza- 
beth Robins's  Votes  for  Women.  Throughout  a 
whole  act  it  held  us  spellbound,  while  the  story  of 
the  play  stood  still,  and  we  forgot  its  existence.  It 
was  only  within  a  few  minutes  of  the  end,  when  the 
story  was  dragged  in  neck  and  crop,  that  the  reality 
of  the  thing  vanished,  and  the  interest  with  it. 

If  an  abstract  theme  be  not  an  advisable  starting- 
point,  what  is?    A  character?    A  situation?    Or  a 


THE   CHOICE    OF   A    THEME        21 

story?  On  this  point  it  would  be  absurd  to  lay 
down  any  rule;  the  more  so  as,  in  many  cases, 
a  playwright  is  quite  unable  to  say  in  what  form 
the  germ  of  a  play  first  floated  into  his  mind. 
The  suggestion  may  come  from  a  newspaper  para- 
graph, from  an  incident  seen  in  the  street,  from 
an  emotional  adventure  or  a  comic  misadventure, 
from  a  chance  word  dropped  by  an  acquaintance, 
or  from  some  flotsam  or  jetsam  of  phrase  or  fable 
that  has  drifted  from  the  other  end  of  history. 
Often,  too,  the  original  germ,  whatever  it  may  be, 
is  transformed  beyond  recognition  before  a  play 
is  done.1  In  the  mind  of  the  playwright  figs  grow 
from  thistles,  and  a  silk  purse  —  perhaps  a  Fortu- 
natus'  purse  —  may  often  be  made  from  a  sow's 
ear.  The  whole  delicate  texture  of  Ibsen's  Doll's 
House  was  woven  from  a  commonplace  story  of 
a  woman  who  forged  a  cheque  in  order  to  re- 
decorate her  drawing-room.  Stevenson's  romance 
of  Prince  Otto  (to  take  an  example  from  fiction) 
grew  out  of  a  tragedy  on  the  subject  of  Semiramis ! 
One  thing,  however,  we  may  say  with  tolerable 
confidence:  whatever  may  be  the  germ  of  a  play 

—  whether  it  be  an  anecdote,  a  situation,  or  what 

1  Mr.  Henry  Arthur  Jones  writes  to  me :  "  Sometimes  I 
start  with  a  scene  only,  sometimes  with  a  complete  idea. 
Sometimes  a  play  splits  into  two  plays,  sometimes  two  or 
three  ideas  combine  into  a  concrete  whole.  Always  the  final 
play  is  altered  out  of  all  knowledge  from  its  first  idea."  An 
interesting  account  of  the  way  in  which  two  very  different 
plays  by  M.  de  Curel :  —  L'Envers  d'tine  Sainte  and  L'Invitet 

—  grew  out  of  one  and  the  same  initial  idea,  may  be  found 
in  L'Annee  Psychologique,  1894,  p.  121. 


22  PLAY-MAKING 

not  —  the  play  will  be  of  small  account  as  a  work 
of  art  unless  character,  at  a  very  early  point,  enters 
into  and  conditions  its  development.  The  story 
which  is  independent  of  character  —  which  can  be 
carried  through  by  a  given  number  of  ready-made 
puppets  —  is  essentially  a  trivial  thing.  Unless, 
at  an  early  stage  of  the  organizing  process,  char- 
acter begins  to  take  the  upper  hand  —  unless  the 
playwright  finds  himself  thinking,  "  Oh,  yes, 
George  is  just  the  man  to  do  this,"  or,  "  That 
is  quite  foreign  to  Jane's  temperament  "  —  he  may 
be  pretty  sure  that  it  is  a  piece  of  mechanism  he 
is  putting  together,  not  a  drama  with  flesh  and 
blood  in  it.  The  difference  between  a  live  play 
and  a  dead  one  is  that  in  the  former  the  char- 
acters control  the  plot,  while  in  the  latter  the 
plot  controls  the  characters.  Which  is  not  to  say, 
of  course,  that  there  may  not  be  clever  and  enter- 
taining plays  which  are  "  dead "  in  this  sense, 
and  dull  and  unattractive  plays  which  are  "  live." 
A  great  deal  of  ink  has  been  wasted  in  contro- 
versy over  a  remark  of  Aristotle^s  that  the  action 
or  muthos,  not  the  character  or  ethos,  is  the  essen- 
tial element  in  drama.  The  statement  is  absolutely 
true  and  wholly  unimportant.  A  play  can  exist 
without  anything  that  can  be  called  character,  but 
not  without  some  sort  of  action.  This  is  implied 
in  the  very  word  "  drama,"  which  means  a  doing, 
not  a  mere  saying  or  existing.  It  would  be  possi- 
ble, no  doubt,  to  place  Don  Quixote,  or  Falstaff, 
or  Peer  Gynt  on  the  stage,  and  let  him  develop  his 


THE    CHOICE   OF   A    THEME        23 

character  in  mere  conversation,  or  even  monologue, 
without  ever  moving  from  his  chair.  But  it  is  a 
truism  that  deeds,  not  words,  are  the  demonstration 
and  test  of  character;  wherefore,  from  time  im- 
memorial, it  has  been  the  recognized  business  of 
the  theatre  to  exhibit  character  in  action.  His- 
torically, too,  we  find  that  drama  has  everywhere 
originated  in  the  portrayal  of  an  action  —  some 
exploit  or  some  calamity  in  the  career  of  some 
demigod  or  hero.  Thus  story  or  plot  is  by  defi- 
nition, tradition,  and  practical  reason,  the  funda- 
mental element  in  drama;  but  does  it  therefore 
follow  that  it  is  the  noblest  element,  or  that  by 
which  its  value  should  be  measured?  Assuredly 
not.  The  skeleton  is,  in  a  sense,  the  fundamental 
element  in  the  human  organism.  It  can  exist,  and, 
with  a  little  assistance,  retain  its  form,  when 
stripped  of  muscle  and  blood  and  nerve;  whereas 
a  boneless  man  would  be  an  amorphous  heap,  more 
helpless  than  a  jelly-fish.  But  do  we  therefore 
account  the  skeleton  man's  noblest  part  ?  Scarcely. 
It  is  by  his  blood  and  nerve  that  he  lives,  not  by 
his  bones;  and  it  is  because  his  bones  are,  com- 
paratively speaking,  dead  matter  that  they  con- 
tinue to  exist  when  the  flesh  has  fallen  away  from 
them.  It  is,  therefore,  if  not  a  misreading  of 
Aristotle,1  at  any  rate  a  perversion  of  reason,  to 

1  In  my  discussion  of  this  point,  I  have  rather  simplified 
Aristotle's  position.  He  appears  to  make  action  the  essential 
element  in  tragedy  and  not  merely  the  necessary  vehicle  of 
character.  "  In  a  play,"  he  says,  "  they  do  not  act  in  order 
to  portray  the  characters,  they  include  the  characters  for  the 


24  PLAY-MAKING 

maintain  that  the  drama  lives  by  action,  rather 
than  by  character.  Action  ought  to  exist  for  the 
sake  of  character:  when  the  relation  is  reversed, 
the  play  may  be  an  ingenious  toy,  but  scarcely  a 
vital  work  of  art. 

It  is  time  now  to  consider  just  what  we  mean 
when  we  say  that  the  first  step  towards  play- 
writing  is  the  "  choice  "  of  a  theme. 

In  many  cases,  no  doubt,  it  is  the  plain  and 
literal  fact  that  the  impulse  to  write  some  play 
—  any  play  —  exists,  so  to  speak,  in  the  abstract, 
unassociated  with  any  particular  subject,  and  that 
the  would-be  playwright  proceeds,  as  he  thinks,  to 
set  his  imagination  to  work,  and  invent  a  story. 
But  this  frame  of  mind  is  to  be  regarded  with 
suspicion.  Few  plays  of  much  value,  one  may 
guess,  have  resulted  from  such  an  abstract  im- 
pulse. Invention,  in  these  cases,  is  apt  to  be  noth- 
ing but  recollection  in  disguise,  the  shaking  of 
a  kaleidoscope  formed  of  fragmentary  reminis- 
cences. I  remember  once,  in  some  momentary  ac- 
cess of  ambition,  trying  to  invent  a  play.  I  occu- 

sake  of  the  action.  So  that  it  is  the  action  in  it,  i.  e.  its  Fable 
or  PJot,  that  is  the  end  and  purpose  of  the  tragedy,  and  the 
end  is  everywhere  the  chief  thing.  Besides  this,  a  tragedy 
is  impossible  without  action,  but  there  may  be  one  without 
character."  (Bywater's  Translation.)  The  last  sentence  is, 
in  my  view,  the  gist  of  the  matter;  the  preceding  sentences 
greatly  overstate  the  case.  There  was  a  lively  controversy 
on  the  subject  in  the  Times  Literary  Supplement  in  May, 
1902.  It  arose  from  a  review  of  Mr.  Phillips's  Paolo  and 
Francesco,  and  Mr.  Andrew  Lang,  Mr.  Churton  Collins,  and 
Mr.  A.  B.  Walkley  took  part  in  it. 


THE   CHOICE   OF   A   THEME        25 

pied  several  hours  of  a  long  country  walk  in,  as  I 
believed,  creating  out  of  nothing  at  all  a  dramatic 
story.  When  at  last  I  had  modelled  it  into  some 
sort  of  coherency,  I  stepped  back  from  it  in  my 
mind,  as  it  were,  and  contemplated  it  as  a  whole. 
No  sooner  had  I  done  so  than  it  began  to  seem 
vaguely  familiar.  "  Where  have  I  seen  this  story 
before?"  I  asked  myself;  and  it  was  only  after 
cudgelling  my  brains  for  several  minutes  that  I 
found  I  had  re-invented  Ibsen's  Hedda  G abler. 
Thus,  when  we  think  we  are  choosing  a  plot  out  of 
the  void,  we  are  very  apt  to  be,  in  fact,  ransacking 
the  storehouse  of  memory.  The  plot  which  chooses 
us  is  much  more  to  be  depended  upon  —  the  idea 
which  comes  when  we  least  expect  it,  perhaps  from 
the  most  unlikely  quarter,  clamours  at  the  gates  of 
birth,  and  will  not  let  us  rest  till  it  be  clothed  in 
dramatic  flesh  and  blood.1  It  may  very  well  hap- 
pen, of  course,  that  it  has  to  wait  —  that  it  has  to 
be  pigeon-holed  for  a  time,  until  its  due  turn 
comes.2  Occasionally,  perhaps,  it  may  slip  out  of 
its  pigeon-hole  for  an  airing,  only  to  be  put  back 
again  in  a  slightly  more  developed  form.  Then  at 
last  its  convenient  season  will  arrive,  and  the  play 

1  "Are  the  first  beginnings  9f  imaginative  conception  di- 
rected by  the  will?  Are  they,  indeed,  conscious  at  all?  Do 
they  not  rather  emerge  unbidden  from  the  vague  limbo  of 
sub-consciousness  ?  "  A.  B.  Walkley,  Drama  and  Life,  p.  85. 

J  Sardou  kept  a  file  of  about  fifty  dossiers,  each  bearing 
the  name  of  an  unwritten  play,  and  containing  notes  and 
sketches  for  it.  Dumas,  on  the  other  hand,  always  finished 
one  play  before  he  began  to  think  of  another.  See  L 'Annie 
Psychologique,  1894,  pp.  67,  76. 


26  PLAY-MAKING 

will  be  worked  out,  written,  and  launched  into  the 
struggle  for  life.  In  the  sense  of  selecting  from 
among  a  number  of  embryonic  themes  stored  in  his 
mind,  the  playwright  has  often  to  make  a  deliber- 
ate choice  ;  but  when,  moved  by  a  purely  abstract 
impulse,  he  goes  out  of  set  purpose  to  look  for  a 
theme,  it  may  be  doubted  whether  he  is  likely  to 
return  with  any  very  valuable  treasure-trove.1 

The  same  principle  holds  good  in  the  case  of  the 
ready-made  poetic  or  historical  themes,  which  are 
—  rightly  or^  wrongly  —  considerecTsuitable  for 
treatment  in  blank  verse.  Whether,  and  how  far, 
the  blank  verse  drama  can  nowadays  be  regarded 
as  a  vital  and  viable  form  is  a  question  to  be  con- 
sidered later.  In  the  meantime  it  is  sufficient  to 
say  that  whatever  principles  of  conception  and  con- 
struction apply  to  the  modern  prose  drama,  apply 
with  equal  cogency  to  the  poetic  drama.  The 
verse-poet  may  perhaps  take  one  or  two  licenses 
denied  to  the  prose-poet.  For  instance,  we  may 
find  reason  to  think  the  soliloquy  more  excusable 
in  verse  than  in  prose.  But,  fundamentally,  the 
two  forms  are  ruled  by  the  same  set  of  conditions, 
which  the  verse-poet,  no  less  than  the  prose-poet, 

1  "  My  experience  is,"  a  dramatist  writes  to  me,  "  that  you 
never  deliberately  choose  a  theme.  You  lie  awake,  or  you 
go  walking,  and  suddenly  there  flashes  into  your  mind  a  con- 
trast, a  piece  of  spiritual  irony,  an  old  incident  carrying  some 
general  significance.  Round  this  your  mind  broods,  and 
there  is  the  germ  of  your  play."  Again  he  writes  :  "  It  is 
not  advisable  for  a  playwright  to  start  out  at  all  unless  he 
has  so  felt  or  seen  something,  that  he  feels,  as  it  matures 
m  his  mind,  that  he  must  express  it,  and  in  dramatic  form." 


r 


THE    CHOICE    OF   A    THEME        27 

can  ignore  only  at  his  peril.  Unless,  indeed,  he 
renounces  from  the  outset  all  thought  of  the  stage 
and  chooses  to  produce  that  cumbrous  nondescript, 
a  "  closet  drama."  Of  such  we  do  not  speak,  but 
glance  and  pass  on.  What  laws,  indeed,  can  apply 
to  a  form  which  has  no  proper  element,  but,  like  the 
amphibious  animal  described  by  the  sailor,  "  can- 
not live  on  land  and  dies  in  the  water  "  ? 

To  return  to  our  immediate  topic,  the  poet  who 
essays  dramatic  composition  on  mere  abstract  im- 
pulse, because  other  poets  have  done  so,  or  be- 
cause he  is  told  that  it  pays,  is  only  too  likely  to 
produce  willy-nilly  a  "  closet  drama."  Let  him 
beware  of  saying  to  himself,  "  I  will  gird  up  my 
loins  and  write  a  play.  Shall  it  be  a  Phaedra,  or  a 
Semiramis,  or  a  Sappho,  or  a  Cleopatra  ?  A  Julian, 
or  an  Attila,  or  a  Savanarola,  or  a  Cromwell  ?  " 
A  drama  conceived  in  this  reach-me-down  fashion 
will  scarcely  have  the  breath  of  life  in  it.  If ,  on 
the  other  hand,  in  the  course  of  his  legendary,  ro- 
mantic, or  historical  reading-,  some  character  should 
take  hold  upon  his  imagination  and  demand  to  be 
interpreted,  or  some  episode  should,  as  it  were, 
startle  him  by  putting  on  vivid  dramatic  form  be- 
fore his  mind's  eye,  then  let  him  by  all  means  yield 
to  the  inspiration,  and  try  to  mould  the  theme  into 
a  drama.  The  real  labour  of  creation  will  still  lie 

^fcte^p^^w^^ft 

before  him ;  but  he  may  face  it  with  the  hope 
of  producing  a  live  play,  not  a  long-drawn  rhetori- 
cal anachronism,  whether  of  the  rotund  or  of  the 
spasmodic  type. 


Ill 

DRAMATIC   AND   UNDRAMATIC 

IT  may  be  well,  at  this  point,  to  consider  for  a 
little  what  we  mean  when  we  use  the  term 
"  dramatic."  We  shall  probably  not  arrive  at  any 
definition  which  can  be  applied  as  an  infallible 
touchstone  to  distinguish  the  dramatic  from  the 
undramatic.  Perhaps,  indeed,  the  upshot  may 
rather  be  to  place  the  student  on  his  guard  against 
troubling  too  much  about  the  formal  definitions 
of  critical  theorists. 

The  orthodox  opinion  of  the  present  time  is  that 
which  is  generally  associated  with  the  name  of  the 
late  Ferdinand  Brunetiere.     "  The  theatre  in  gen- 
eral," said  that  critic,  "  is  nothing  but  the  place  for 
the  devejgpment  of  the  human  will,  attacking  the 
obstacles  opposed  to  it  by  ^elImyrioTtane"r^r  clr- 
cumstanges.      And  again  :£jJrama  IS  a  rfipresenta- 
tion  of  the  will  of  man  in  conflict  with  the  mys- 
terious powers  or  natural  forces  which  limit  and 
belittle  us;    it  is  one  of  us  thrown  living  upon 
;  the  stage,  there  to  struggle  against  fatality,  against 
1  social    law,    against    one    of    his    fellow-mortals, 
j  against  himself,  if  need  be,  against  the  ambitions, 

28 


DRAMATIC   AND    UNDRAMATIC      29 


the  interests,  the  prejudices,  the  folly,  the  malevo- 
lence of  those  who  surround  him." 

The  difficulty  about  this  definition  is  that,  while 
it  describes  the  matter  of  a  good  many  dramas,  it 
does  not  lay  down  any  true  differentia  —  any  char- 
acteristic common  to  all  drama,  and  possessed  by 
no  other  form  of  fiction.  Many  of  the  greatest 
plays  in  the  world  can  with  difficulty  be  brought 
under  the  formula,  while  the  majority  of  romances 
and  other  stories  come  under  it  with  ease.  Where, 
for  instance,  is  the  struggle  in  the  Agamemnon? 
There  is  no  more  struggle  between  Clytemnestra 
and  Agamemnon  than  there  is  between  the  spider 
and  the  fly  who  walks  into  his  net.  There  is  not 
even  a  struggle  in  Clytemnestra's  mind.  Agamem- 
non's doom  is  sealed  from  the  outset,  and  she 
merely  carries  out  a  pre-arranged  plot.  There  is 
contest  indeed  in  the  succeeding  plays  of  the  tril- 
ogy; but  it  will  scarcely  be  argued  that  the 
Agamemnon,  taken  alone,  is  not  a  great  drama. 
Even  the  Oedipus  of  Sophocles,  though  it  may  at 
first  sight  seem  a  typical  instance  of  a  struggle 
against  Destiny,  does  not  really  come  under  the 
definition.  Oedipus,  in  fact,  does  not  struggle  at 
all.  His  struggles,  in  so  far  as  that  word  can  be 
applied  to  his  misguided  efforts  to  escape  from 
the  toils  of  fate,  are  all  things  of  the  past;  in 
the  actual  course  of  the  tragedy  he  simply  writhes 
under  one  revelation  after  another  of  bygone  error 
and  unwitting  crime.  It  would  be  a  mere  play 
1  Etudes  Critiques,  vol.  vii.  pp.  153  and  207. 


30  PLAY-MAKING 

upon  words  to  recognize  as  a  dramatic  "  struggle  " 
the  writhing  of  a  worm  on  a  hook.  And  does  not 
this  description  apply  very  closely  to  the  part  played 
by  another  great  protagonist  —  Othello  to  wit  ? 
There  is  no  struggle,  no  conflict,  between  him  and 
lago.  It  is  lago  alone  who  exerts  any  will ;  neither 
Othello  nor  Desdemona  makes  the  smallest  fight. 
From  the  moment  when  lago  sets  his  machination 
to  work,  they  are  like  people  sliding  down  an  ice- 
slope  to  an  inevitable  abyss.  Where  is  the  conflict 
in  As  You  Like  Itf  No  one,  surely,  will  pretend 
that  any  part  of  the  interest  or  charm  of  the  play 
arises  from  the  struggle  between  the  banished  Duke 
and  the  Usurper,  or  between  Orlando  and  Oliver. 
There  is  not  even  the  conflict,  if  so  it  can  be  called, 
which  nominally  brings  so  many  hundreds  of  plays 
under  the  Brunetiere  canon  —  the  conflict  between 
an  eager  lover  and  a  more  or  less  reluctant  maid. 
Or  take,  again,  Ibsen's  Ghosts  —  in  what  valid 
sense  can  it  be  said  that  that  tragedy  shows  us 
will  struggling  against  obstacles?  Oswald,  doubt- 
less, wishes  to  live,  and  his  mother  desires  that  he 
should  live;  but  this  mere  will  for  life  cannot  be 
the  differentia  that  makes  of  Ghosts  a  drama.  If 
the  reluctant  descent  of  the  "  downward  path  to 
death  "  constituted  drama,  then  Tolstoy's  Death  of 
Ivan  Ilytch  would  be  one  of  the  greatest  dramas 
ever  written  —  which  it  certainly  is  not.  Yet 
again,  if  we  want  to  see  will  struggling  against 
obstacles,  the  classic  to  turn  to  is  not  Hamlet,  not 
Lear,  but  Robinson  Criisoe;  yet  no  one,  except  a 


DRAMATIC    AND    UNDRAMATIC      31 

pantomime  librettist,  ever  saw  a  drama  in  Defoe's 
narrative.  In  a  Platonic  dialogue,  in  Paradise 
Lost,  in  John  Gilpin,  there  is  a  struggle  of  will 
against  obstacles ;  there  is  none  in  Hannele,  which, 
nevertheless,  is  a  deeply-moving  drama.  Such  a 
struggle  is  characteristic  of  all  great  fiction,  from 
Clarissa  Harlowe  to  The  House  with  the  Green 
Shutters;  whereas  in  many  plays  the  struggle,  if 
there  be  any  at  all,  is  the  merest  matter  of  form 
(for  instance,  a  quite  conventional  love-story), 
while  the  real  interest  resides  in  something  quite 
different. 

The  plain  truth  seems  to  be  that  conflict  is  one 
of  the  most  dramatic  elements  in  life,  and  that 
many  dramas  —  perhaps  most  —  do,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  turn  upon  strife  of  one  sort  or  another. 
But  it  is  clearly  an  error  to  make  conflict  indis- 
pensable to  drama,  and  especially  to  insist  —  as  do 
some  of  Brunetiere's  followers  —  that  the  conflict 
must  be  between  will  and  will.  A  stand-up  fight 
between  will  and  will  —  such  a  fight  as  occurs  in, 
say,  the  Hippolytus  of  Euripides,  or  Racine's  An~ 
dromaque,  or  Moliere's  Tartufe,  or  Ibsen's  Pre- 
tenders, or  Dumas's  FranqUlon,  or  Sudermann's 
Heimat,  or  Sir  Arthur  Pinero's  Gay  Lord  Quex, 
or  Mr.  Shaw's  Candida,  or  Mr.  Galsworthy's  Strife 
—  such  a  stand-up  fight,  I  say,  is  no  doubt  one  of 
the  intensest  forms  of  drama.  But  it  is  compara- 
tively rare,  at  any  rate  as  the  formula  of  a  whole 
play.  In  individual  scenes  a  conflict  of  will  is  fre- 
quent enough ;  but  it  is,  after  all,  only  one  among 


32  PLAY-MAKING 

a  multitude  of  equally  telling-  forms  of  drama.  No 
one  can  say  that  the  Balcony  Scene  in  Romeo  and 
Juliet  is  undramatic,  or  the  "  Galeoto  fu  il  libro  " 
scene  in  Mr.  Stephen  Phillips's  Paolo  and  Fran- 
cesca;  yet  the  point  of  these  scenes  is  not  a  clash, 
but  an  ecstatic  concordance,  of  wills.  Is  the  death- 
scene  of  Cleopatra  undramatic?  Or  the  Banquet 
scene  in  Macbeth?  Or  the  pastoral  act  in  The 
Winter's  Tale?  Yet  in  none  of  these  is  there  any 
conflict  of  wills.  In  the  whole  range  of  drama 
there  is  scarcely  a  passage  which  one  would  call 
more  specifically  dramatic  than  the  Screen  Scene 
in  The  School  for  Scandal;  yet  it  would  be  the 
veriest  quibbling  to  argue  that  any  appreciable  part 
of  its  effect  arises  from  the  clash  of  will  against 
will.  This  whole  comedy,  indeed,  suffices  to  show 
the  emptiness  of  the  theory.  With  a  little  strain 
it  is  possible  to  bring  it  within  the  letter  of  the 
formula;  but  who  can  pretend  that  any  consider- 
able part  of  the  attraction  or  interest  of  the  play 
is  due  to  that  possibility? 

The  champions  of  the  theory,  moreover,  place 
it  on  a  metaphysical  basis,  finding  in  the  will  the 
essence  of  human  personality,  and  therefore  of  the 
art  which  shows  human  personality  raised  to  its 
highest  power.  It  seems  unnecessary,  however,  to 
apply  to  Schopenhauer  for  an  explanation  of  what- 
ever validity  the  theory  may  possess.  For  a  suffi- 
cient account  of  the  matter,  we  need  go  no  further 
than  the  simple  psychological  observation  that 
human  nature  loves  a  fight,  whether  it  be  with 


DRAMATIC   AND    UNDRAMATIC      33 

clubs  or  with  swords,  with  tongues  or  with  brains. 
One  of  the  earliest  forms  of  mediaeval  drama  was 
the  "estrif"  or  "  flyting  "  —  the  scolding-match 
between  husband  and  wife,  or  between  two  rustic 
gossips.  This  motive  is  glorified  in  the  quarrel 
between  Brutus  and  Cassius,  degraded  in  the  pat- 
ter of  two  "  knockabout  comedians."  Certainly 
there  is  nothing  more  telling  in  drama  than  a  piece 
of  "  cut-and-thrust "  dialogue  after  the  fashion  of 
the  ancient  "  stichomythia."  When  a  whole  theme 
involving  conflict,  or  even  a  single  scene  of  the 
nature  described  as  a  "  passage-at-arms,"  comes 
naturally  in  the  playwright's  way,  by  all  means 
let  him  seize  the  opportunity.  But  do  not  let  him 
reject  a  theme  or  scene  as  undramatic,  merely  be- 
cause it  has  no  room  for  a  clash  of  warring  wills. 
There  is  a  variant  of  the  "  conflict "  theory 
which  underlines  the  word  "  obstacles "  in  the 
above-quoted  dictum  of  Brunetiere,  and  lays  down 
the  rule :  "  No  obstacle,  no  drama."  Though  far 
from  being  universally  valid,  this  form  of  the 
theory  has  a  certain  practical  usefulness,  and  may 
well  be  borne  in  mind.  Many  a  play  would  have 
remained  unwritten  if  the  author  had  asked  him- 
self, "  Is  there  a  sufficient  obstacle  between  my  two 
lovers?  "  or,  in  more  general  terms,  "  between  my 
characters  and  the  realization  of  their  will  ? " 
There  is  nothing  more  futile  than  a  play  in  which 
we  feel  that  there  is  no  real  obstacle  to  the  in- 
evitable happy  ending,  and  that  the  curtain  might 
just  as  well  fall  in  the  middle  of  the  first  act  as 


34  PLAY-MAKING 

at  the  end  of  the  third.  Comedies  abound  (though 
they  reach  the  stage  only  by  accident)  in  which  the 
obstacle  between  Corydon  and  Phyllis,  between 
Lord  Edwin  and  Lady  Angelina,  is  not  even  a 
defect  or  peculiarity  of  character,  but  simply  some 
trumpery  misunderstanding l  which  can  be  kept 
afoot  only  so  long  as  every  one  concerned  holds 
his  or  her  common  sense  in  studious  abeyance. 
"  Pyramus  and  Thisbe  without  the  wall  "  may  be 
taken  as  the  formula  for  the  whole  type  of  play. 
But  even  in  plays  of  a  much  higher  type,  the 
author  might  often  ask  himself  with  advantage 
whether  he  could  not  strengthen  his  obstacle,  and 
so  accentuate  the  struggle  which  forms  the  matter 
of  his  play.  Though  conflict  may  not  be  essential 
to  drama,  yet,  when  you  set  forth  to  portray  a 
struggle,  you  may  as  well  make  it  as  real  and 
intense  as  possible. 

It  seems  to  me  that  in  the  late  William  Vaughn 
Moody's  drama,  The  Great  Divide,  the  body  of 
the  play,  after  the  stirring  first  act,  is  weakened 
by  our  sense  that  the  happy  ending  is  only  being 
postponed  by  a  violent  effort.  We  have  been  as- 
sured from  the  very  first  —  even  before  Ruth  Jor- 
dan has  set  eyes  on  Stephen  Ghent  —  that  just  such 
a  rough  diamond  is  the  ideal  of  her  dreams.  It  is 

*  In  the  most  aggravated  cases,  the  misunderstanding  is 
maintained  by  a  persevering  use  of  pronouns  in  place  of 
proper  names :  "  he  "  and  "  she  "  being  taken  by  the  hearer 
to  mean  A.  and  B.,  when  the  speaker  is  in  fact  referring  to 
X.  and  Y.  This  ancient  trick  becomes  the  more  irritating  the 
longer  the  quiproquo  is  dragged  out 


DRAMATIC   AND   UNDRAMATIC     35 

true  that,  after  their  marriage,  the  rough  diamond 
seriously  misconducts  himself  towards  her;  and 
we  have  then  to  consider  the  rather  unattractive 
question  whether  a  single  act  of  brutality  on  the 
part  of  a  drunken  husband  ought  to  be  held  so  un- 
pardonable as  to  break  up  a  union  which  other- 
wise promises  to  be  quite  satisfactory.  But  the 
author  has  taken  such  pains  to  emphasize  the  fact 
that  these  two  people  are  really  made  for  each 
other,  that  the  answer  to  the  question  is  not  for  a 
moment  in  doubt,  and  we  become  rather  impatient 
of  the  obstinate  sulkiness  of  Ruth's  attitude.  If 
there  had  been  a  real  disharmony  of  character  to  be 
overcome,  instead  of,  or  in  addition  to,  the  sordid 
misadventure  which  is  in  fact  the  sole  barrier 
between  them,  the  play  would  certainly  have  been 
stronger,  and  perhaps  more  permanently  popular. 
In  a  play  by  Mr.  James  Bernard  Fagan,  The 
Prayer  of  the  Sword,  we  have  a  much  clearer  ex- 
ample of  an  inadequate  obstacle.  A  youth  named 
Andrea  has  been  brought  up  in  a  monastery,  and 
destined  for  the  priesthood;  but  his  tastes  and 
aptitudes  are  all  for  a  military  career.  He  is,  how- 
ever, on  the  verge  of  taking  his  priestly  vows,  when 
accident  calls  him  forth  into  the  world,  and  he  has 
the  good  fortune  to  quell  a  threatened  revolution 
in  a  romantic  Duchy,  ruled  over  by  a  duchess  of 
surpassing  loveliness.  With  her  he  naturally  falls 
in  love;  and  the  tragedy  lies,  or  ought  to  lie,  in 
the  conflict  between  this  earthly  passion  and  his 
heavenly  calling  and  election.  But  the  author  has 


36  PLAY-MAKING 

taken  pains  to  make  the  obstacle  between  Andrea 
and  Ilaria  absolutely  unreal.  The  fact  that  Andrea 
has  as  yet  taken  no  irrevocable  vow  is  not  the  es- 
sence of  the  matter.  Vow  or  no  vow,  there  would 
have  been  a  tragic  conflict  if  Andrea  had  felt  abso- 
lutely certain  of  his  calling  to  the  priesthood,  and 
had  defied  Heaven,  and  imperilled  his  immortal 
soul,  because  of  his  overwhelming  passion.  That 
would  have  been  a  tragic  situation ;  but  the  author 
had  carefully  avoided  it.  From  the  very  first  — 
before  Andrea  had  ever  seen  Ilaria  —  it  had  been 
impressed  upon  us  that  he  had  no  priestly  vocation. 
There  was  no  struggle  in  his  soul  between  passion 
and  duty ;  there  was  no  struggle  at  all  in  his  soul. 
His  struggles  are  all  with  external  forces  and  in- 
fluences ;  wherefore  the  play,  which  a  real  obstacle 
might  have  converted  into  a  tragedy,  remained  a 
sentimental  romance  —  and  is  forgotten. 

What,  then,  is  the  essence  of  drama,  if  conflict 
be  not  it?  What  is  the  common  quality  of  themes, 
scenes,  and  incidents,  which  we  recognize  as  spe- 
cifically dramatic  ?  Perhaps  we  shall  scarcely  come 
nearer  to  a  helpful  definition  than  if  we  say  that 
the  essence  of  drama  is  crisis.  A  play  is  a  more  or 
less  rapidly-developing  crisis  in  destiny  or  circum- 
stance, and  a  dramatic  scene  is  a  crisis  within  a 
crisis,  clearly  furthering  the  ultimate  event.  The 
drama  may  be  called  the  art  of  crises,  as  fiction 
is  the  art  of  gradual  developments.  It  is  the  slow- 
ness of  its  processes  which  differentiates  the  typical 


1,  V   ' 


DRAMATIC   AND   UNDRAMATIC      37 

novel  from  the  typical  play.  If  the  novelist  does 
not  take  advantage  of  the  facilities  offered  by  his 
form  for  portraying  gradual  change,  whether  in 
the  way  of  growth  or  of  decay,  he  renounces  his 
own  birthright,  in  order  to  trespass  on  the  domain 
of  the  dramatist.  Most  great  novels  embrace  con- 
siderable segments  of  many  lives;  whereas  the 
drama  gives  us  only  the  culminating  points  —  or 
shall  we  say  the  intersecting  culminations  ?  —  two 
or  three  destinies.  Some  novelists  have  excelled 
precisely  in  the  art  with  which  they  have  made  the 
gradations  of  change  in  character  or  circumstance 
so  delicate  as  to  be  imperceptible  from  page  to 
page,  and  measurable,  as  in  real  life,  only  when 
we  look  back  over  a  considerable  period.  The 
dramatist,  on  the  other  hand,  deals  in  rapid  and 
startling  changes,  the  "  peripeties,"  as  the  Greeks 
called  them,  which  may  be  the  outcome  of  long, 
slow  processes,  but  which  actually  occur  in  very 
brief  spaces  of  time.  Nor  is  this  a  merely  me- 
chanical consequence  of  the  narrow  limits  of  stage 
presentation.  The  crisis  is  as  real,  though  not  as 
inevitable,  a  part  of  human  experience  as  the 
gradual  development.  Even  if  the  material  con- 
ditions of  the  theatre  permitted  the  presentation 
of  a  whole  Middlemarch  or  Anna  Karenine  —  as 
the  conditions  of  the  Chinese  theatre  actually  do 
—  some  dramatists,  we  cannot  doubt,  would  vol- 
untarily renounce  that  license  of  prolixity,  in  order 
to  cultivate  an  art  of  concentration  and  crisis.  The 
Greek  drama  "  subjected  to  the  faithful  eyes,"  as 


38  PLAY-MAKING 

Horace  phrases  it,  the  culminating  points  of  the 
Greek  epic;  the  modern  drama  places  under  the 
lens  of  theatrical  presentment  the  culminating 
points  of  modern  experience. 

But,  manifestly,  it  is  not  every  crisis  that  is 
dramatic.  A  serious  illness,  a  law-suit,  a  bank- 
ruptcy, even  an  ordinary  prosaic  marriage,  may  be 
a  crisis  in  a  man's  life,  without  being  necessarily, 
or  even  probably,  material  for  drama.  How,  then, 
do  we  distinguish  a  dramatic  from  a  non-dramatic 
crisis?  Generally,  I  think,  by  the  fact  that  it 
develops,  or  can  be  made  naturally  to  develop, 
through  a  series  of  minor  crises,  involving  more 
or  less  emotional  excitement,  and,  if  possible,  the 
vivid  manifestation  of  character.  Take,  for  in- 
stance, the  case  of  a  bankruptcy.  Most  people, 
probably,  who  figure  in  the  Gazette  do  not  go 
through  any  one,  or  two,  or  three  critical  moments 
of  special  tension,  special  humiliation,  special 
agony.  They  gradually  drift  to  leeward  in  their 
affairs,  undergoing  a  series  of  small  discourage- 
ments, small  vicissitudes  of  hope  and  fear,  small 
unpleasantnesses,  which  they  take  lightly  or  hardly 
according  to  their  temperament,  or  the  momentary 
state  of  their  liver.  In  this  average  process  of 
financial  decline,  there  may  be  —  there  has  been  — 
matter  for  many  excellent  novels,  but  scarcely  for 
a  drama.  That  admirable  chapter  in  Little  Dorrit, 
wherein  Dickens  describes  the  gradual  degradation 
of  the  Father  of  the  Marshalsea,  shows  how  a  mas- 
ter of  fiction  deals  with  such  a  subject;  but  it 


DRAMATIC   AND    UNDRAMATIC     39 

would  be  quite  impossible  to  transfer  this  chapter 
to  the  stage.  So,  too,  with  the  bankruptcy  of 
Colonel  Newcome  —  certain  emotional  crises  aris- 
ing from  it  have,  indeed,  been  placed  on  the  stage, 
but  only  after  all  Thackeray's  knowledge  of  the 
world  and  fine  gradations  of  art  had  been  elimi- 
nated. Mr.  Hardy's  Mayor  of  Casterbridge  has, 
I  think,  been  dramatized,  but  not,  .1  think,  with 
success.  A  somewhat  similar  story  of  financial 
ruin,  the  grimly  powerful  House  with  the  Green 
Shutters,  has  not  even  tempted  the  dramatizer. 
There  are,  in  this  novel,  indeed,  many  potentially 
dramatic  crises;  the  trouble  is  that  they  are  too 
numerous  and  individually  too  small  to  be  suitable 
for  theatrical  presentment.  Moreover,  they  are 
crises  affecting  a  taciturn  and  inarticulate  race,1  a 
fact  which  places  further  difficulties  in  the  way  of 
the  playwright.  In  all  these  cases,  in  short,  the 
bankruptcy  portrayed  is  a  matter  of  slow  develop- 
ment, with  no  great  outstanding  moments,  and  is 
consequently  suited  for  treatment  in  fiction  rather 
than  in  drama. 

But  bankruptcy  sometimes  occurs  in  the  form 
of  one  or  more  sudden,  sharp  crises,  and  has, 
therefore,  been  utilized  again  and  again  as  a  dra- 
matic motive.  In  a  hundred  domestic  dramas  or 
melodramas,  we  have  seen  the  head  of  a  happy 
household  open  a  newspaper  or  a  telegram  an- 

1  The  Lowland  Scottish  villager.  It  is  noteworthy  that 
Mr.  J.  M.  Barrie,  who  himself  belongs  to  this  race,  has  an 
almost  unique  gift  of  extracting  dramatic  effect  out  of  taci- 
turnity, and  even  out  of  silence. 


40  PLAY-MAKING 

flouncing  the  failure  of  some  enterprise  in  which 
all  his  fortune  is  embarked.  So  obviously  dramatic 
is  this  incident  that  it  has  become  sadly  hackneyed. 
Again,  we  have  bankruptcy  following  upon  a 
course  of  gambling,  generally  in  stocks.  Here 
there  is  evident  opportunity,  which  has  been  fre- 
quently utilized,  for  a  series  of  crises  of  somewhat 
violent  and  commonplace  emotion.  In  American 
drama  especially,  the  duels  of  Wall  Street,  the 
combats  of  bull  and  bear,  form  a  very  popular 
theme,  which  clearly  falls  under  the  Brunetiere 
formula.  Few  American  dramatists  can  resist  the 
temptation  of  showing  some  masterful  financier 
feverishly  watching  the  "  ticker  "  which  proclaims 
him  a  millionaire  or  a  beggar.  The  "  ticker  "  had 
not  been  invented  in  the  days  when  Ibsen  wrote 
The  League  of  Youth,  otherwise  he  would  doubt- 
less have  made  use  of  it  in  the  fourth  act  of  that 
play.  The  most  popular  of  all  Bjornson's  plays  is 
specifically  entitled  A  Bankruptcy.  Here  the  poet 
has  had  the  art  to  select  a  typical  phase  of  business 
life,  which  naturally  presents  itself  in  the  form  of 
an  ascending  curve,  so  to  speak,  of  emotional 
crises.  We  see  the  energetic,  active  business  man, 
with  a  number  of  irons  in  the  fire,  aware  in  his 
heart  that  he  is  insolvent,  but  not  absolutely  clear  as 
to  his  position,  and  hoping  against  hope  to  retrieve 
it.  We  see  him  give  a  great  dinner-party,  in 
order  to  throw  dust  in  the  eyes  of  the  world,  and 
to  secure  the  support  of  a  financial  magnate,  who 
is  the  guest  of  honour.  The  financial  magnate  is 


DRAMATIC   AND   UNDRAMATIC      41 

inclined  to  "  bite,"  and  goes  off,  leaving-  the  mer- 
chant under  the  impression  that  he  is  saved.  This 
is  an  interesting  and  natural,  but  scarcely  a  thrill- 
ing, crisis.  It  does  not,  therefore,  discount  the 
supreme  crisis  of  the  play,  in  which  a  cold,  clear- 
headed business  man,  who  has  been  deputed  by 
the  banks  to  look  into  the  merchant's  affairs,  proves 
to  him,  point  by  point,  that  it  would  be  dishonest 
of  him  to  flounder  any  longer  in  the  swamp  of  in- 
solvency, into  which  he  can  only  sink  deeper  and 
drag  more  people  down  with  him.  Then  the  bank- 
rupt produces  a  pistol  and  threatens  murder  and 
suicide  if  the  arbiter  of  his  fate  will  not  consent 
to  give  him  one  more  chance ;  but  his  frenzy  breaks 
innocuous  against  the  other's  calm,  relentless  rea- 
son. Here  we  have,  I  repeat,  a  typically  dramatic 
theme :  a  great  crisis,  bringing  out  vivid  mani- 
festations of  character,  not  only  in  the  bankrupt 
himself,  but  in  those  around  him,  and  naturally 
unfolding  itself  through  a  series  of  those  lesser 
crises,  which  we  call  interesting  and  moving  scenes. 
The  play  is  scarcely  a  great  one,  partly  because  its 
ending  is  perfunctory,  partly  because  Bjornson, 
poet  though  he  was,  had  not  Ibsen's  art  of  "  throw- 
ing in  a  little  poetry"  into  his  modern  dramas. 
I  have  summarized  it  up  to  its  culminating  point, 
because  it  happened  to  illustrate  the  difference  be- 
tween a  bankruptcy,  dramatic  in  its  nature  and 
treatment,  and  those  undramatic  bankruptcies  to 
which  reference  has  been  made.  In  La  Doulour- 
euse,  by  Maurice  Donnay,  bankruptcy  is  inciden- 


42  PLAY-MAKING 

tally  employed  to  bring  about  a  crisis  of  a  different 
order.  A  ball  is  proceeding  at  the  house  of  a 
Parisian  financier,  when  the  whisper  spreads  that 
the  host  is  ruined,  and  has  committed  suicide  in 
a  room  above;  whereupon  the  guests,  after  a  mo- 
ment of  flustered  consternation,  go  on  supping  and 
dancing ! *  We  are  not  at  all  deeply  interested  in 
the  host  or  his  fortunes.  The  author's  purpose  is 
to  illustrate,  rather  crudely,  the  heartlessness  of 
plutocratic  Bohemia;  and  by  means  of  the  bank- 
ruptcy and  suicide  he  brings  about  what  may  be 
called  a  crisis  of  collective  character.2 

As  regards  individual  incidents,  it  may  be  said 
in  general  that  the  dramatic  way  of  treating  them 
is  the  crisp  and  staccato,  as  opposed  to  the  smooth 
or  legato,  method.  It  may  be  thought  a  point  of 
inferiority  in  dramatic  art  that  it  should  deal  so 
largely  in  shocks  to  the  nerves,  and  should  appeal 
by  preference,  wherever  it  is  reasonably  possible, 
to  the  cheap  emotions  of  curiosity  and  surprise. 
But  this  is  a  criticism,  not  of  dramatic  art,  but 
of  human  nature.  We  may  wish  that  mankind 
took  more  pleasure  in  pure  apprehension  than  in 
emotion ;  but  so  long  as  the  fact  is  otherwise,  that 
way  of  handling  ah  incident  by  which  the  great- 

1  There  is  a  somewhat  similar  incident  in  Clyde  Fitch's 
play,  The  Moth  and  the  Flame. 

Les  Corbeaux,  by  Henri  Becque,  might  perhaps  be  classed 
as  a  bankruptcy  play,  though  the  point  of  it  is  that  the  Vigne- 
ron  family  is  not  really  bankrupt  at  all,  but  is  unblushingly 
fleeced  by  the  partner  and  the  lawyer  of  the  deceased  Vigne- 
ron,  who  play  into  each  other's  hands. 


DRAMATIC   AND   UNDRAMATIC      43 

est  variety  and  poignancy  of  emotion  can  be  ex- 
tracted from  it  will  remain  the  specifically  dramatic 
way. 

We  shall  have  to  consider  later  the  relation  be- 
tween what  may  be  called  primary  and  secondary 
suspense  or  surprise  —  that  is  to  say  between  sus- 
pense or  surprise  actually  experienced  by  the  spec- 
tator to  whom  the  drama  is  new,  and  suspense  or 
surprise  experienced  only  sympathetically,  on  be- 
half of  the  characters,  by  a  spectator  who  knows 
perfectly  what  is  to  follow.  The  two  forms  of 
emotion  are  so  far  similar  that  we  need  not  dis- 
tinguish between  them  in  considering  the  general 
content  of  the  term  "  dramatic."  It  is  plain  that 
the  latter  or  secondary  form  of  emotion  must  be 
by  far  the  commoner,  and  the  one  to  which  the 
dramatist  of  any  ambition  must  make  his  main  ap- 
peal; for  the  longer  his  play  endures,  the  larger 
will  be  the  proportion  of  any  given  audience  which 
knows  it  beforehand,  in  outline,  if  not  in  detail. 

As  a  typical  example  of  a  dramatic  way  of 
handling  an  incident,  so  as  to  make  a  supreme 
effect  of  what  might  else  have  been  an  anti-climax, 
one  may  cite  the  death  of  Othello.  Shakespeare 
was  faced  by  no  easy  problem.  Desdemona  was 
dead,  Emilia  dead,  lago  wounded  and  doomed  to 
the  torture ;  how  was  Othello  to  die  without  merely 
satiating  the  audience  with  a  glut  of  blood  ?  How 
was  his  death  to  be  made,  not  a  foregone  conclu- 
sion, a  mere  conventional  suicide,  but  the  culmi- 
nating moment  of  the  tragedy?  In  no  single  detail, 


44  PLAY-MAKING 

perhaps,  did  Shakespeare  ever  show  his  dramatic 
genius  more  unmistakably  than  in  his  solution 
of  this  problem.  We  all  remember  how,  as  he  is 
being  led  away,  Othello  stays  his  captors  with  a 
gesture,  and  thus  addresses  them  : 

"  Soft  you ;  a  word  or  two,  before  you  go. 
I  have  done  the  state  some  service,  and  they  know't; 
No  more  of  that.    I  pray  you,  in  your  letters, 
When  you  shall  these  unlucky  deeds  relate, 
Speak  of  me  as  I  am;  nothing  extenuate, 
Nor  set  down  aught  in  malice,  then  must  you  speak 
Of  one  that  loved  not  wisely  but  too  well; 
Of  one  not  easily  jealous,  but,  being  wrought, 
Perplex'd  in  the  extreme;   of  one  whose  hand, 
Like  the  base  Indian,  threw  a  pearl  away 
Richer  than  all  his  tribe;   of  one  whose  subdued  eyes, 
Albeit  unused  to  the  melting  mood, 
Drop  tears  as  fast  as  the  Arabian  trees 
Their  medicinable  gum.    Set  you  down  this ; 
And  say  besides,  that  in  Aleppo  once, 
Where  a  malignant  and  a  turban'd  Turk 
Beat  a  Venetian  and  traduced  the  state, 
I  took  by  the  throat  the  circumcised  dog, 
And  smote  him  —  thus !  " 

What  is  the  essence  of  Shakespeare's  achieve- 
ment in  this  marvellous  passage?  What  is  it  that 
he  has  done?  He  has  thrown  his  audience,  just 
as  Othello  has  thrown  his  captors,  off  their  guard, 
and  substituted  a  sudden  shock  of  surprise  for  a 
tedious  fulfilment  of  expectation.  In  other  words, 
he  has  handled  the  incident  crisply  instead  of  flac- 
cidly,  and  so  given  it  what  we  may  call  the  specific 
accent  of  drama. 

Another  consummate  example  of  the  dramatic 
handling  of  detail  may  be  found  in  the  first  act  of 
Ibsen's  Little  Eyolf.  The  lame  boy,  Eyolf,  has 


DRAMATIC  AND  UNDRAMATIC     45 

followed  the  Rat-wife  down  to  the  wharf,  has 
fallen  into  the  water,  and  been  drowned.  This 
is  the  bare  fact:  how  is  it  to  be  conveyed  to  the 
child's  parents  and  to  the  audience  ? 

A  Greek  dramatist  would  probably  have  had 
recourse  to  a  long  and  elaborately  worked-up 
"  messenger-speech,"  a  pathetic  recitation.  That 
was  the  method  best  suited  to  the  conditions,  and 
to  what  may  be  called  the  prevailing  tempo,  of  the 
Greek  theatre.  I  am  far  from  saying  that  it  was 
a  bad  method :  no  method  is  bad  which  holds  and 
moves  an  audience.  But  in  this  case  it  would 
have  had  the  disadvantage  of  concentrating  atten- 
tion on  the  narrator  instead  of  on  the  child's 
parents,  on  the  mere  event  instead  of  on  the  emo- 
tions it  engendered.  In  the  modern  theatre,  with 
greater  facilities  for  reproducing  the  actual  move- 
ment of  life,  the  dramatist  naturally  aims  at  con- 
veying to  the  audience  the  growing  anxiety,  the 
suspense  and  the  final  horror,  of  the  father  and 
mother.  The  most  commonplace  playwright  would 
have  seen  this  opportunity  and  tried  to  make  the 
most  of  it.  Every  one  can  think  of  a  dozen  com- 
monplace ways  in  which  the  scene  could  be  ar- 
ranged and  written;  and  some  of  them  might  be 
quite  effective.  The  great  invention  by  which 
Ibsen  snatches  the  scene  out  of  the  domain  of  the 
commonplace,  and  raises  it  to  the  height  of  dra- 
matic poetry,  consists  in  leaving  it  doubtful  to  the 
father  and  mother  what  is  the  meaning  of  the 
excitement  on  the  'beach  and  the  confused  cries 


46  PLAY-MAKING 

which  reach  their  ears,  until  one  cry  comes  home  to 
them  with  terrible  distinctness,  "  The  crutch  is 
flpating!"  It  would  be  hard  to  name  any  single 
phrase  in  literature  in  which  more  dramatic  effect 
is  concentrated  than  in  these  four  words  —  they 
are  only  two  words  in  the  original.  However 
dissimilar  in  its  nature  and  circumstances,  this  in- 
cident is  comparable  with  the  death  of  Othello, 
inasmuch  as  in  each  case  the  poet,  by  a  supreme 
felicity  of  invention,  has  succeeded  in  doing  a 
given  thing  in  absolutely  the  most  dramatic  method 
conceivable.  Here  we  recognize  in  a  consummate 
degree  what  has  been  called  the  "  fingering  of  the 
dramatist " ;  and  I  know  not  how  better  to  ex- 
press the  common  quality  of  the  two  incidents 
than  in  saying  that  each  is  touched  with  extraor- 
dinary crispness,  so  as  to  give  to  what  in  both 
cases  has  for  some  time  been  expected  and  fore- 
seen a  sudden  thrill  of  novelty  and  unexpectedness. 
That  is  how  to  do  a  thing  dramatically.1 

1  "  Dramatic  "  has  recently  become  one  of  the  most  over- 
worked words  in  the  vocabulary  of  journalism.  It  constantly 
appears,  not  only  in  the  text  of  the  picturesque  reporter,  but 
in  head-lines  and  on  bulletin-boards.  When,  on  July  20,  1911, 
Mr.  Asquith  wrote  to  Mr.  Balfour  to  inform  him  that  the 
King  had  guaranteed  the  creation  of  peers,  should  it  prove 
necessary  for  the  passing  of  the  Parliament  Bill,  one  paper 
published  the  news  under  this  head-line :  "  DRAMATIC  AN- 
NOUNCEMENT BY  THE  PRIME  MINISTER,"  and  the  parliamentary 
correspondent  of  another  paper  wrote :  "  With  dramatic  sud- 
denness and  swiftness,  the  Prime  Minister  hurled  his  thunder- 
bolt at  the  wavering  Tory  party  yesterday."  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  the  letter  was  probably  not  "  hurled  "  more  suddenly  or 
swiftly  than  the  most  ordinary  invitation  to  dinner:  nor  can 
its  contents  have  been  particularly  surprising  to  any  one.  It 


DRAMATIC   AND   UNDRAMATIC      47 

And  now,  after  all  this  discussion  of  the  "  dra- 
matic "  in  theme  and  incident,  it  remains  to  be 
said  that  the  tendency  of  recent  theory,  and  of 
some  recent  practice,  has  been  to  widen  the  mean- 
ing of  the  word,  until  it  bursts  the  bonds  of  all 
definition.  Plays  have  been  written,  and  have 
found  some  acceptance,  in  which  the  endeavour 
of  the  dramatist  has  been  to  depict  life,  not  in  mo- 
ments of  crisis,  but  in  its  most  level  and  hum- 
drum phases,  and  to  avoid  any  crispness  of  touch 
in  the  presentation  of  individual  incidents.  "  Dra- 
matic," in  the  eyes  of  writers  of  this  school,  has 
become  a  term  of  reproach,  synoymous  with  "  the- 
atrical." They  take  their  cue  from  Maeterlinck's 
famous  essay  on  "  The  Tragic  in  Daily  Life,"  in 
which  he  lays  it  down  that :  "  An  old  man,  seated 
in  his  armchair,  waiting  patiently,  with  his  lamp 
beside  him  —  submitting  with  bent  head  to  the 
presence  of  his  soul  and  his  destiny  —  motionless 
as  he  is,  does  yet  live  in  reality  a  deeper,  more 
human,  and  more  universal  life  than  the  lover  who 
strangles  his  mistress,  the  captain  who  conquers 
in  battle,  or  the  husband  who  '  avenges  his  hon- 
our.' '  They  do  not  observe  that  Maeterlinck,  in 
his  own  practice,  constantly  deals  with  crises,  and 
often  with  violent  and  startling  ones. 

was  probably  the  conclusiyeness,  the  finality,  of  the  announce- 
ment that  struck  these  writers  as  "  dramatic."  The  letter  put 
an  end  to  all  dubiety  with  a  "  short,  sharp  shock."  It  was,  in 
fact,  crisp.  As  a  rule,  however,  "  dramatic  "  is  employed  by 
the  modern  journalist  simply  as  a  rather  pretentious  synonym 
for  the  still  more  hackneyed  "  startling." 


48  PLAY-MAKING 

At  the  same  time,  I  am  far  from  suggesting 
that  the  reaction  against  the  traditional  "  dra- 
matic" is  a  wholly  mistaken  movement.  It  is 
a  valuable  corrective  of  conventional  theatricalism ; 
and  it  has,  at  some  points,  positively  enlarged  the 
domain  of  dramatic  art.  Any  movement  is  good 
which  helps  to  free  art  from  the  tyranny  of  a  code 
of  rules  and  definitions.  The  only  really  valid 
definition  of  the  dramatic  is:  Any  representation 
of  imaginary  personages  which  is  capable  of  inter- 
esting an  average  audience  assembled  in  a  theatre. 
We  must  say  "  representation  of  imaginary  per- 
sonages "  in  order  to  exclude  a  lecture  or  a  prize- 
fight ;  and  we  must  say  "  an  average  audience  " 
(or  something  to  that  effect)  in  order  to  exclude 
a  dialogue  of  Plato  or  of  Landor,  the  recitation  of 
which  might  interest  a  specially  selected  public. 
Any  further  attempt  to  limit  the  content  of  the 
term  "  dramatic  "  is  simply  the  expression  of  an 
opinion  that  such-and-such  forms  of  representation 
will  not  be  found  to  interest  an  audience ;  and  this 
opinion  may  always  be  rebutted  by  experiment. 
In  all  that  I  have  said,  then,  as  to  the  dramatic 
and  the  non-dramatic,  I  must  be  taken  as  meaning : 
"  Such-and-such  forms  and  methods  have  been 
found  to  please,  and  will  probably  please  again. 
They  are,  so  to  speak,  safer  and  easier  than  other 
forms  and  methods.  But  it  is  the  part  of  original 
genius  to  override  the  dictates  of  experience,  and 
nothing  in  these  pages  is  designed  to  discourage 
original  genius  from  making  the  attempt."  We 


DRAMATIC    AND    UNDRAMATIC      49 

have  already  seen,  indeed,  that  in  a  certain  type 
of  play  —  the  broad  picture  of  a  social  phenomenon 
or  environment  —  it  is  preferable  that  no  attempt 
should  be  made  to  depict  a  marked  crisis.  There 
should  be  just  enough  story  to  afford  a  plausible 
excuse  for  raising  and  for  lowering  the  curtain.1 

Let  us  not,  however,  seem  to  grant  too  much 
to  the  innovators  and  the  quietists.  To  say  that  a 
drama  should  be,  or  tends  to  be,  the  presentation 
of  a  crisis  in  the  life  of  certain  characters,  is  by  no 
means  to  insist  on  a  mere  arbitrary  convention. 
It  is  to  make  at  once  an  induction  from  the  over- 


1  As  a  specimen,  and  a  successful  specimen,  of  this  new 
technic,  I  may  cite  Miss  Elizabeth  Baker's  very  interesting 
play,  Chains.  There  is  absolutely  no  "  story  "  in  it,  no  com- 
plication of  incidents,  not  even  any  emotional  tension  worth 
speaking  of.  Another  recent  play  of  something  the  same 
type,  The  Way  the  Money  Goes,  by  Lady  Bell,  was  quite 
thrilling  by  comparison.  There  we  saw  a  workman's  wife 
bowed  down  by  a  terrible  secret  which  threatened  to  wreck 
her  whole  life  —  the  secret  that  she  had  actually  run  into  debt 
to  the  amount  of  £30.  Her  situation  was  dramatic  in  the  or- 
dinary sense  of  the  word,  very  much  as  Nora's  situation 
is  dramatic  when  she  knows  that  Krogstad's  letter  is  in 
Helmer's  hands.  But  in  Chains  there  is  not  even  this  simple 
form  of  excitement  and  suspense.  A  city  clerk,  oppressed 
by  the  deadly  monotony  and  narrowness  of  his  life,  thinks 
of  going  to  Australia  —  and  does  n't  go :  that  is  the  sum 
and  substance  of  the  action.  Also,  by  way  of  underplot,  a 
shopgirl,  oppressed  by  the  deadly  monotony  and  narrowness 
of  her  life,  thinks  of  escaping  from  it  by  marrying  a  middle- 
aged  widower  —  and  doesn't  do  it.  If  any  one  had  told  the 
late  Francisque  Sarcey,  or  the  late  Clement  Scott,  that  a  play 
could  be  made  out  of  this  slender  material,  which  should 
hold  an  audience  absorbed  through  four  acts,  and  stir  them 
to  real  enthusiasm,  these  eminent  critics  would  have  thought 
him  a  madman.  Yet  Miss  Baker  has  achieved  this  feat,  by 
the  simple  process  of  supplementing  competent  observation 
with  a  fair  share  of  dramatic  instinct. 


50  PLAY-MAKING 

whelming  majority  of  existing  dramas,  and  a  de- 
duction from  the  nature  and  inherent  conditions 
of  theatrical  presentation.  The  fact  that  theatrical 
conditions  often  encourage  a  violent  exaggeration 
of  the  characteristically  dramatic  elements  in  life 
does  not  make  these  elements  any  the  less  real  or 
any  the  less  characteristically  dramatic.  It  is  true 
that  crispness  of  handling  may  easily  degenerate 
into  the  pursuit  of  mere  picture-poster  situation; 
but  that  is  no  reason  why  the  artist  should  not 
seek  to  achieve  crispness  within  the  bounds  pre- 
scribed by  nature  and  common  sense.  There  is 
a  drama  —  I  have  myself  seen  it  —  in  which  the 
heroine,  fleeing  from  the  villain,  is  stopped  by  a 
yawning  chasm.  The  pursuer  is  at  her  heels,  and 
it  seems  as  though  she  has  no  resource  but  to  hurl 
herself  into  the  abyss.  But  she  is  accompanied 
by  three  Indian  servants,  who  happen,  by  the  mercy 
of  Providence,  to  be  accomplished  acrobats.  The 
second  climbs  on  the  shoulders  of  the  first,  the 
third  on  the  shoulders  of  the  second;  and  then 
the  whole  trio  falls  forward  across  the  chasm, -the 
top  one  grasping  some  bush  or  creeper  on  the  other 
side;  so  that  a  living  bridge  is  formed,  on  which 
the  heroine  (herself,  it  would  seem,  something  of 
an  acrobat)  can  cross  the  dizzy  gulf  and  bid  de- 
fiance to  the  baffled  villain.  This  is  clearly  a  dra- 
matic crisis  within  our  definition;  but,  no  less 
clearly,  it  is  not  a  piece  of  rational  or  commendable 
drama.  To  say  that  such-and-such  a  factor  is 
necessary,  or  highly  desirable,  in  a  dramatic  scene, 


DRAMATIC   AND    UNDRAMATIC      51 

is  by  no  means  to  imply  that  every  scene  which 
contains  this  factor  is  good  drama.  Let  us  take 
the  case  of  another  heroine — Nina  in  Sir  Arthur 
Pinero's  His  House  in  Order.  The  second  wife  of 
Filmer  Jesson,  she  is  continually  being  offered  up 
as  a  sacrifice  on  the  altar  dedicated  to  the  memory 
of  his  adored  first  wife.  Not  only  her  husband, 
but  the  relatives  of  the  sainted  Annabel,  make  her 
life  a  burden  to  her.  Then  it  comes  to  her  knowl- 
edge —  she  obtains  absolute  proof  —  that  Annabel 
was  anything  but  the  saint  she  was  believed  to  be. 
By  a  single  word  she  can  overturn  the  altar  of  her 
martyrdom,  and  shatter  the  dearest  illusion  of  her 
persecutors.  Shall  she  speak  that  word,  or  shall 
she  not?  Here  is  a  crisis  which  comes  within  our 
definition  just  as  clearly  as  the  other ; *  only  it  hap- 
pens to  be  entirely  natural  and  probable,  and  emi- 
nently illustrative  of  character.  Ought  we,  then, 
to  despise  it  because  of  the  element  it  has  in 
common  with  the  picture-poster  situation  of  pre- 
posterous melodrama  ?  Surely  not.  Let  those  who 
have  the  art  —  the  extremely  delicate  and  difficult 

1  If  the  essence  of  drama  is  crisis,  it  follows  that  nothing 
can  be  more  dramatic  than  a  momentous  choice  which  may 
make  or  mar  both  the  character  and  the  fortune  of  the 
chooser  and  of  others.  There  is  an  element  of  choice  in  all 
action  which  is,  or  seems  to  be,  the  product  of  free  will; 
but  there  is  a  peculiar  crispness  of  effect  when  two  alterna- 
tives are  clearly  formulated,  and  the  choice  is  made  after  a 
mental  struggle,  accentuated,  perhaps,  by  impassioned  ad- 
vocacy of  the  conflicting  interests.  Such  scenes  are  Corio- 
lanus,  v.  3,  the  scene  between  Ellida,  Wangel,  and  the 
Stranger  in  the  last  act  of  The  Lady  from  the  Sea,  and  the 
concluding  scene  of  Candida. 


52  PLAY-MAKING 

art  —  of  making  drama  without  the  characteris- 
tically dramatic  ingredients,  do  so  by  all  means; 
but  let  them  not  seek  to  lay  an  embargo  on  the 
judicious  use  of  these  ingredients  as  they  present 
themselves  in  life. 


IV 

THE   ROUTINE   OF   COMPOSITION 

AS  no  two  people,  probably,  ever  did,  or  ever 
will,  pursue  the  same  routine  in  play-making, 
it  is  manifestly  impossible  to  lay  down  any  gen- 
eral rules  on  the  subject.  There  are  one  or  two 
considerations,  however,  which  it  may  not  be 
wholly  superfluous  to  suggest  to  beginners. 

An  invaluable  insight  into  the  methods  of  a 
master  is  provided  by  the  scenarios  and  drafts  of 
plays  published  in  Henrik  Ibsen's  Efterladte  Skrif- 
ter.  The  most  important  of  these  "  fore-works," 
as  he  used  to  call  them,  have  now  been  translated 
under  the  title  of  From  Ibsen's  Workshop  (Scrib- 
ner),  and  may  be  studied  with  the  greatest  profit. 
Not  that  the  student  should  mechanically  imitate 
even  Ibsen's  routine  of  composition,  which,  indeed, 
varied  considerably  from  play  to  play.  The  great 
lesson  to  be  learnt  from  Ibsen's  practice  is  that 
the  play  should  be  kept  fluid  or  plastic  as  long  as 
possible,  and  not  suffered  to  become  immutably 
fixed,  either  in  the  author's  mind  or  on  paper, 
before  it  has  had  time  to  grow  and  ripen.  Many, 
if  not  most,  of  Ibsen's  greatest  individual  inspira- 

53 


54  PLAY-MAKING 

tions  came  to  him  as  afterthoughts,  after  the  play 
had  reached  a  point  of  development  at  which  many 
authors  would  have  held  the  process  of  gestation 
ended,  and  the  work  of  art  ripe  for  birth.  Among 
these  inspired  afterthoughts  may  be  reckoned 
Nora's  great  line,  "  Millions  of  women  have  done 
that  "  —  the  most  crushing  repartee  in  literature  — 
Hedvig's  threatened  blindness,  with  all  that  ensues 
from  it,  and  Little  Eyolf's  crutch,  used  to  such  pur- 
pose as  we  have  already  seen. 

This  is  not  to  say  that  the  drawing-up  of  a 
tentative  scenario  ought  not  to  be  one  of  the  play- 
wright's first  proceedings.  Indeed,  if  he  is'  able 
to  dispense  with  a  scenario  on  paper,  it  can  only 
be  because  his  mind  is  so  clear,  and  so  retentive 
of  its  own  ideas,  as  to  enable  him  to  carry  in  his 
head,  always  ready  for  reference,  a  more  or  less 
detailed  scheme.  Go-as-you-please  composition 
may  be  possible  for  the  novelist,  perhaps  even  for 
the  writer  of  a  one-act  play,  a  mere  piece  of  dia- 
logue ;  but  in  a  dramatic  structure  of  any  consider- 
able extent,  proportion,  balance,  and  the  intercon- 
nection of  parts  are  so  essential  that  a  scenario 
is  almost  as  indispensable  to  a  dramatist  as  a  set 
of  plans  to  an  architect.  There  is  one  dramatist 
of  note  whom  one  suspects  of  sometimes  working 
without  any  definite  scenario,  and  inventing  as  he 
goes  along.  That  dramatist,  I  need  scarcely  say, 
is  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw.  I  have  no  absolute  knowl- 
edge of  his  method;  but  if  he  schemed  out  any 
scenario  for  Getting  Married  or  Misalliance,  he  has 


ROUTINE    OF    COMPOSITION        55 

sedulously  concealed  the  fact  —  to  the  detriment  of 
the  plays.1 

The  scenario  or  skeleton  is  so  manifestly  the 
natural  groundwork  of  a  dramatic  performance 
that  the  playwrights  of  the  Italian  commedia 
dell'  arte  wrote  nothing  more  than  a  scheme  of 
scenes,  and  left  the  actors  to  do  the  rest.  The  same 
practice  prevailed  in  early  Elizabethan  days,  as  one 
or  two  MS.  "  Plats,"  designed  to  be  hung  up  in 
the  wings,  are  extant  to  testify.  The  transition 
from  extempore  acting  regulated  by  a  scenario  to 
the  formal  learning  of  parts  falls  within  the  his- 

1  Sardou  wrote  careful  and  detailed  scenarios,  Dumas 
fits  held  it  a  waste  of  time  to  do  so.  Pailleron  wrote  "  enor- 
mous "  scenarios,  Meilhac  very  brief  ones,  or  none  at  all. 
Mr.  Galsworthy,  rather  to  my  surprise,  disdains,  and  even 
condemns,  the  scenario,  holding  that  a  theme  becomes  life- 
less when  you  put  down  its  skeleton  on  paper.  Sir  Arthur 
Pinero  says :  "  Before  beginning  to  write  a  play,  I  always 
make  sure,  by  means  of  a  definite  scheme,  that  there  is  a 
way  of  doing  it;  but  whether  I  ultimately  follow  that  way 
is  a  totally  different  matter."  Mr.  Alfred  Sutro  practically 
confesses  to  a  scenario.  He  says :  "  Before  I  start  writing 
the  dialogue  of  a  play,  I  make  sure  that  I  shall  have  an  ab- 
solutely free  hand  over  the  entrances  and  exits :  in  other 
words,  that  there  is  ample  and  legitimate  reason  for  each 
character  appearing  in  any  particular  scene,  and  ample  mo- 
tive for  his  leaving  it."  Mr.  Granville  Barker  does  not  put 
on  paper  a  detailed  scenario.  He  says :  "  I  plan  the  general 
scheme,  and  particularly  the  balance  of  the  play,  in  my 
head ;  but  this,  of  course,  does  not  depend  entirely  on  en- 
trances and  exits."  Mr.  Henry  Arthur  Jones  says :  "  I  know 
the  leading  scenes,  and  the  general  course  of  action  in  each 
act,  before  I  write  a  line.  When  I  have  got  the  whole 
story  clear,  and  divided  into  acts,  I  very  carefully  construct 
the  first  act,  as  a  series  of  scenes  between  such  and  such  of 
the  characters.  When  the  first  act  is  written  I  carefully 
construct  the  second  act  in  the  same  way  —  and  so  on.  I 
sometimes  draw  up  twenty  scenarios  for  an  act  before  I 
can  get  it  to  go  straight." 


56  PLAY-MAKING 

torical  period  of  the  German  stage.  It  seems  prob- 
able that  the  romantic  playwrights  of  the  sixteenth 
and  seventeenth  centuries,  both  in  England  and  in 
Spain,  may  have  adopted  a  method  not  unlike  that 
of  the  drama  of  improvisation,  that  is  to  say,  they 
may  have  drawn  out  a  scheme  of  entrances  and 
exits,  and  then  let  their  characters  discourse  (on 
paper)  as  their  fancy  prompted.  So,  at  least,  the 
copious  fluency  of  their  dialogue  seems  to  suggest. 
But  the  typical  modern  play  is  a  much  more  close- 
knit  organism,  in  which  every  word  has  to  be 
weighed  far  more  carefully  than  it  was  by  play- 
wrights who  stood  near  to  the  days  of  improvisa- 
tion, and  could  indulge  in  "  the  large  utterance  of 
the  early  gods."  Consequently  it  would  seem  that, 
until  a  play  has  been  thought  out  very  clearly  and 
in  great  detail,  any  scheme  of  entrances  and  exits 
ought  to  be  merely  provisional  and  subject  to  in- 
definite modification.  A  modern  play  is  not  a 
framework  of  story  loosely  draped  in  a  more  or 
less  gorgeous  robe  of  language.  There  is,  or  ought 
to  be,  a  close  interdependence  between  action,  char- 
acter and  dialogue,  which  forbids  a  playwright  to 
tie  his  hands  very  far  in  advance. 

As  a  rule,  then,  it  would  seem  to  be  an  un- 
favourable sign  when  a  drama  presents  itself  at 
an  early  stage  with  a  fixed  and  unalterable  outline. 
The  result  may  be  a  powerful,  logical,  well-knit 
piece  of  work;  but  the  breath  of  life  will  scarcely 
be  in  it.  Room  should  be  left  as  long  as  possible 
for  unexpected  developments  of  character.  If 


ROUTINE   OF    COMPOSITION        57 

your  characters  are  innocent  of  unexpected  de- 
velopments, the  less  characters  they.1  Not  that  I, 
personally,  have  any  faith  in  those  writers  of  fic- 
tion, be  they  playwrights  or  novelists,  who  contend 
that  they  do  not  speak  through  the  mouths  of  their 
personages,  but  rather  let  their  personages  speak 
through  them.  "  I  do  not  invent  or  create  "  I  have 
heard  an  eminent  novelist  say :  "  I  simply  record ; 
my  characters  speak  and  act,  and  I  write  down 
their  sayings  and  doings."  This  author  may  be 
a  fine  psychologist  for  purposes  of  fiction,  but  I 
question  his  insight  into  his  own  mental  processes. 
The  apparent  spontaneity  of  a  character's  proceed- 
ings is  a  pure  illusion.  It  means  no  more  than  that 
the  imagination,  once  set  in  motion  along  a  given 
line,  moves  along  that  line  with  an  ease  and  free- 
dom which  seems  to  its  possessor  preternatural  and 
almost  uncanny.2 

Most  authors,  however,  who  have  any  real  gift 
for  character-creation  probably  fall  more  or  less 

1  A  friend  of  the  late  Clyde  Fitch  writes  to  me :  "Fitch 
was  often  astonished  at  the  way  in  which  his  characters 
developed.  He  tried  to  make  them  do  certain  things :  they 
did  others." 

1  This  account  of  the  matter  seems  to  find  support  in  a 
statement,  by  M.  Francois  de  Curel,  an  accomplished  psy- 
chologist, to  the  effect  that  during  the  first  few  days  of 
work  at  a  play  he  is  "  clearly  conscious  of  creating,"  but 
that  gradually  he  gets  "  into  the  skin "  of  his  characters, 
and  appears  to  work  by  instinct.  No  doubt  some  artists  are 
actually  subject  to  a  sort  of  hallucination,  during  which  they 
seem  rather  to  record  than  to  invent  the  doings  of  their 
characters.  But  this  somewhat  morbid  condition  should 
scarcely  be  cultivated  by  the  dramatist,  whose  intelligence 
should  always  keep  a  tight  rein  on  his  more  instinctive 
mental  processes.  See  L'Annee  Psychologique,  1894,  p.  120. 


58  PLAY-MAKING 

under  this  illusion,  though  they  are  sane  enough 
and  modest  enough  to  realize  that  an  illusion  it  is.1 
A  character  will  every  now  and  then  seem  to  take 
the  bit  between  his  teeth  and  say  and  do  things 
for  which  his  creator  feels  himself  hardly  responsi- 
ble. The  playwright's  scheme  should  not,  then, 
until  the  latest  possible  moment,  become  so  hard 
and  fast  as  to  allow  his  characters  no  elbow  room 
for  such  manifestations  of  spontaneity.  And  this 
is  only  one  of  several  forms  of  afterthought  which 
may  arise  as  the  play  develops.  The  playwright 
may  all  of  a  sudden  see  that  a  certain  character 
is  superfluous,  or  that  a  new  character  is  needed, 
or  that  a  new  relationship  between  two  characters 
would  simplify  matters,  or  that  a  scene  that  he 
has  placed  in  the  first  act  ought  to  be  in  the 
second,  or  that  he  can  dispense  with  it  altogether, 
or  that  it  reveals  too  much  to  the  audience  and 
must  be  wholly  recast.2  These  are  only  a  few 

1  Sir  Arthur  Pinero  «ays:  "The  beginning  of  a  play  to 
me  is  a  little  world  of  people.  I  live  with  them,  get  familiar 
with  them,  and  they  tell  me  the  story."  This  may  sound  not 
unlike  the  remark  of  the  novelist  above  quoted;  but  the  in- 
tention was  quite  different.  Sir  Arthur  simply  meant  that 
the  story  came  to  him  as  the  characters  took  on  life  in  his 
imagination.  Mr.  H.  A.  Jones  writes :  "  When  you  have  a 
character  or  several  characters  you  have  n't  a  play.  You 
may  keep  these  in  your  mind  and  nurse  them  till  they  com- 
bine in  a  piece  of  action ;  but  you  have  n't  got  your  play 
till  you  have  theme,  characters,  and  action  all  fused.  The 
process  with  me  is  as  purely  automatic  and  spontaneous 
as  dreaming;  in  fact  it  is  really  dreaming  while  you  are 
awake." 

"  Here,"  says  a  well-known  playwright,  "  is  a  common 
experience.  You  are  struck  by  an  idea  with  which  you  fall 
in  love.  '  Ha ! '  you  say.  '  What  a  superb  scene  where  the 


•ROUTINE   OF    COMPOSITION        59 

of  the  re-adjustments  which  have  constantly  to  be 
made  if  a  play  is  shaping  itself  by  a  process  of 
vital  growth ;  and  that  is  why  the  playwright  may 
be  advised  to  keep  his  material  fluid  as  long  as  he 
can.  Ibsen  had  written  large  portions  of  the  play 
now  known  to  us  as  Rosmersholm  before  he  de- 
cided that  Rebecca  should  not  be  married  to  Ros- 
mer.  He  also,  at  a  comparatively  late  stage,  did 
away  with  two  daughters  whom  he  had  at  first 
given  to  Rosmer,  and  decided  to  make  her  child- 
lessness the  main  cause  of  Beata's  tragedy. 

Perhaps  I  insist  too  strongly  on  the  advisability 
of  treating  a  dramatic  theme  as  clay  to  be  modelled 
and  remodelled,  rather  than  as  wood  or  marble  to 
be  carved  unalterably  and  once  for  all.  If  so,  it  is 
because  of  a  personal  reminiscence.  In  my  early 
youth,  I  had,  like  everybody  else,  ambitions  in  the 
direction  of  play-writing;  and  it  was  my  inability 
to  keep  a  theme  plastic  that  convinced  me  of  my 
lack  of  talent.  It  pleased  me  greatly  to  draw  out 
a  detailed  scenario,  working  up  duly  to  a  situation 
at  the  end  of  each  act;  and,  once  made,  that 
scenario  was  like  a  cast-iron  mould  into  which  the 
dialogue  had  simply  to  be  poured.  The  result  was 

man  shall  find  the  missing  will  under  the  sofa !  If  that 
does  n't  make  them  sit  up,  what  will  ?  '  You  begin  the  play. 
The  first  act  goes  all  right,  and  the  second  act  goes  all 
right.  You  come  to  the  third  act,  and  somehow  it  won't  go 
at  all.  You  battle  with  it  for  weeks  in  vain ;  and  then  it 
suddenly  occurs  to  you,  '  Why,  I  see  what 's  wrong !  It 's 
that  confounded  scene  where  the  man  finds  the  will  under 
the  sofa!  Out  it  must  come!'  You  cut  it  out,  and  at  once 
all  goes  smooth  again.  But  you  have  thrown  overboard  the 
great  effect  that  first  tempted  you." 


60  PLAY-MAKING 

that  the  play  had  all  the  merits  of  a  logical,  well- 
ordered  essay.  My  situations  worked  out  like  the 
Q.E.D.'s  of  Euclid.  My  characters  obstinately  re- 
fused to  come  to  life,  or  to  take  the  bit  between 
their  teeth.  They  were  simply  cog-wheels  in  a 
pre-arranged  mechanism.  In  one  respect,  my  two 
or  three  plays  were  models  —  in  respect  of  brevity 
and  conciseness.  I  was  never  troubled  by  the 
necessity  of  cutting  down  —  so  cruel  a  necessity 
to  many  playwrights.1  My  difficulty  was  rather  to 
find  enough  for  my  characters  to  say  —  for  they 
never  wanted  to  say  anything  that  was  not  strictly 
germane  to  the  plot.  It  was  this  that  made  me 
despair  of  play-writing,  and  realize  that  my  mis- 
sion was  to  teach  other  people  how  to  write  plays. 
And,  similarly,  the  aspirant  who  finds  that  his  peo- 
ple never  want  to  say  more  than  he  can  allow 
them  to  say  —  that  they  never  rush  headlong  into 
blind  alleys,  or  do  things  that  upset  the  balance  of 
the  play  and  have  to  be  resolutely  undone  —  that 
aspirant  will  do  well  not  to  be  over-confident  of 
his  dramatic  calling  and  election.  There  may  be 
authors  who  can  write  vital  plays,  as  Shakespeare 
is  said  (on  rather  poor  evidence)  2  to  have  done. 

1  The  manuscripts  of  Dumas  fils  are  said  to  contain,  as 
a  rule,  about  four  times  as  much  matter  as  the  printed 
play!  (Parigot:  Gtnie  et  Mttier,  p.  243.)  This  probably 
means,  however,  that  he  preserved  tentative  and  ultimately 
rejected  scenes,  which  most  playwrights  destroy  as  they  go 
along. 

1  Lowell  points  out  that  this  assertion  of  Heminge  and 
Condell  merely  shows  them  to  have  been  unfamiliar  with 
the  simple  phenomenon  known  as  a  fair  copy. 


ROUTINE    OF    COMPOSITION        61 

without  blotting  a  line;  but  I  believe  them  to  be 
rare.  In  our  day,  the  great  playwright  is  more 
likely  to  be  he  who  does  not  shrink,  on  occasion, 
from  blotting  an  act  or  two. 

There  is  a  modern  French  dramatist  who  writes, 
with  success,  such  plays  as  I  might  have  written 
had  I  combined  a  strong  philosophical  faculty  with 
great  rhetorical  force  and  fluency.  The  dramas 
of  M.  Paul  Hervieu  have  all  the  neatness  and 
cogency  of  a  geometrical  demonstration.  One 
imagines  that,  for  M.  Hervieu,  the  act  of  compo- 
sition means  merely  the  careful  filling  in  of  a 
scenario  as  neat  and  complete  as  a  schedule.1  But 
for  that  very  reason,  despite  their  undoubted  intel- 
lectual power,  M.  Hervieu's  dramas  command  our 
respect  rather  than  our  enthusiasm.  The  dramatist 
should  aim  at  being  logical  without  seeming  so.2 

It  is  sometimes  said  that  a  playwright  ought  to 
construct  his  play  backwards,  and  even  to  write 
his  last  act  first.3  This  doctrine  belongs  to  the 
period  of  the  well-made  play,  when  climax  was  re- 

1  Since  writing  this  I  have  learnt  that  my  conjecture  is 
correct,  at  any  rate  as  regards  some  of  M.  Hervieu's  plays. 

3  See  Chapters  XIII.  and  XVI. 

*  This  view  is  expressed  with  great  emphasis  by  Dumas 
fils  in  the  preface  to  La  Princesse  Georges.  "  You  should 
not  begin  your  work,"  he  says,  "  until  you  have  your  con- 
cluding scene,  movement  and  speech  clear  in  your  mind. 
How  can  you  tell  what  road  you  ought  to  take  until  you 
know  where  you  are  going?"  It  is  perhaps  a  more  appar- 
ent than  real  contradiction  of  this  rule  that,  until  Iris  was 
three  parts  finished,  Sir  Arthur  Pinero  intended  the  play 
to  end  with  the  throttling  of  Iris  by  Maldonado.  The  actual 
end  is  tantamount  to  a  murder,  though  Iris  is  not  actually 
killed. 


62  PLAY-MAKING 

garded  as  the  one  thing  needful  in  dramatic  art, 
and  anticlimax  as  the  unforgivable  sin.  Nowa- 
days, we  do  not  insist  that  every  play  should  end 
with  a  tableau,  or  with  an  emphatic  mot  de  la  fin. 
We  are  more  willing  to  accept  a  quiet,  even  an 
indecisive,  ending.1  Nevertheless  it  is  and  must 
ever  be  true  that,  at  a  very  early  period  in  the 
scheming  of  his  play,  the  playwright  ought  to  as- 
sure himself  that  his  theme  is  capable  of  a  satis- 
factory ending.  Of  course  this  phrase  does  not 
imply  a  "  happy  ending,"  but  one  which  satisfies 
the  author  as  being  artistic,  effective,  inevitable 
(in  the  case  of  a  serious  play),  or,  in  one  word, 
"  right."  An  obviously  makeshift  ending  can  never 
be  desirable,  either  from  the  ideal  or  from  the 
practical  point  of  view.  Many  excellent  plays  have 
been  wrecked  on  this  rock.  The  very  frequent 
complaint  that  "  the  last  act  is  weak  "  is  not  always 
or  necessarily  a  just  reproach;  but  it  is  so  when 
the  author  has  clearly  been  at  a  loss  for  an  ending, 
and  has  simply  huddled  his  play  up  in  a  conven- 
tional and  perfunctory  fashion.  It  may  even  be 
said  that  some  apparently  promising  themes  are 
deceptive  in  their  promise,  since  they  are  inherently 
incapable  of  a  satisfactory  ending.  The  playwright 
should  by  all  means  make  sure  that  he  has  not  run 
up  against  one  of  these  blind-alley  themes.2  He 
should,  at  an  early  point,  see  clearly  the  end  for 
which  he  is  making,  and  be  sure  that  it  is  an  end 

1  See  Chapter  XVIII. 
1  See  Chapter  XX. 


ROUTINE    OF    COMPOSITION        63 

which  he  actively  desires,  not  merely  one  which 
satisfies  convention,  or  which  "  will  have  to  do." 

Some  dramatists,  when  a  play  is  provisionally 
mapped  out,  do  not  attempt  to  begin  at  the  be- 
ginning and  write  it  as  a  coherent  whole,  but  make 
a  dash  first  at  the  more  salient  and  critical  scenes, 
or  those  which  specially  attract  their  imagination. 
On  such  a  point  every  author  must  obviously  be  a 
law  unto  himself.  From  the  theoretical  point  of 
view,  one  can  only  approve  the  practice,  since  it 
certainly  makes  for  plasticity.  It  is  evident  that 
a  detached  scene,  written  while  those  that  lead  up 
to  it  are  as  yet  but  vaguely  conceived,  must  be  sub- 
ject to  indefinite  modification.1  In  several  of 
Ibsen's  very  roughest  drafts,  we  find  short  pas- 
sages of  dialogue  sketched  out  even  before  the 
names  have  been  assigned  to  the  characters,  show- 
ing that  some  of  his  earliest  ideas  came  to  him,  as 
it  were,  ready  dramatized.  One  would  be  tempted 
to  hope  much  of  an  author  who  habitually  and 

1  Most  of  the  dramatists  whom  I  have  consulted  are  op- 
posed to  the  principle  of  "  roughing  out "  the  big  scenes 
first,  and  then  imbedding  them,  as  it  were,  in  their  context. 
Sir  Arthur  Pinero  goes  the  length  of  saying :  "  I  can  never 

fo  on  to  page  2  until  I  am  sure  that  page  i  is  as  right  as 
can  make  it.  Indeed,  when  an  act  is  finished,  I  send  it  at 
once  to  the  printers,  confident  that  I  shall  not  have  to  go 
back  upon  it."  Mr.  Alfred  Sutro  says :  "  I  write  a  play 
straight  ahead  from  beginning  to  end,  taking  practically  as 
long  over  the  first  act  as  over  the  last  three."  And  Mr. 
Granville  Barker :  "  I  always  write  the  beginning  of  a  play 
first  and  the  end  last :  but  as  to  writing  '  straight  ahead  '  — 
it  sounds  like  what  one  may  be  able  to  do  in  Heaven."  But 
almost  all  dramatists,  I  take  it,  jot  down  brief  passages  of 
dialogue  which  they  may  or  may  not  eventually  work  into 
the  texture  of  their  play. 


64  PLAY-MAKING 

unaffectedly  thus  "  lisped  in  dialogue  for  the  dia- 
logue came." 

Ought  the  playwright,  at  an  early  stage  in  the 
process  of  each  act,  to  have  the  details  of  its  scene 
clearly  before  him  ?  Ought  he  to  draw  out  a  scene- 
plot,  and  know,  from  moment  to  moment,  just 
where  each  character  is,  whether  He  is  standing 
on  the  hearthrug  and  She  sitting  on  the  settee,  or 
vice  versa?  There  is  no  doubt  that  furniture, 
properties,  accidents  of  environment,  play  a  much 
larger  part  in  modern  drama  than  they  did  on  the 
Elizabethan,  the  eighteenth  century,  or  even  the 
early-Victorian  stage.  Some  of  us,  who  are  not 
yet  centenarians,  can  remember  to  have  seen  rooms 
on  the  stage  with  no  furniture  at  all  except  two  or 
three  chairs  "  painted  on  the  flat."  Under  such 
conditions,  it  was  clearly  useless  for  the  playwright 
to  trouble  his  head  about  furniture,  and  even  "  posi- 
tions "  might  well  be  left  for  arrangement  at  re- 
hearsal. This  carelessness  of  the  environment, 
however,  is  no  longer  possible.  Whether  we  like 
it  or  no  (and  some  theorists  do  not  like  it  at  all), 
scenery  has  ceased  to  be  a  merely  suggestive  back- 
ground against  which  the  figures  stand  out  in  high 
relief.  The  stage  now  aims  at  presenting  a  com- 
plete picture,  with  the  figures,  not  "  a  little  out  of 
the  picture,"  but  completely  in  it.  This  being  so, 
the  playwright  must  evidently,  at  some  point  in  the 
working  out  of  his  theme,  visualize  the  stage- 
picture  in  considerable  detail;  and  we  find  that 
almost  all  modern  dramatists  do.  as  a  matter  of 


ROUTINE    OF    COMPOSITION       65 

fact,  pay  great  attention  to  what  may  be  called  the 
topography  of  their  scenes,  and  the  shifting  "  posi- 
tions "  of  their  characters.  The  question  is :  at 
what  stage  of  the  process  of  composition  ought 
this  visualization  to  occur?  Here,  again,  it  would 
be  absurd  to  lay  down  a  general  rule;  but  I  am 
inclined  to  think,  both  theoretically  and  from  what 
can  be  gathered  of  the  practice  of  the  best  drama- 
tists, that  it  is  wisest  to  reserve  it  for  a  compara- 
tively late  stage.  A  playwright  of  my  acquaint- 
ance, and  a  very  remarkable  playwright  too,  used 
to  scribble  the  first  drafts  of  his  play  in  little  note- 
books, which  he  produced  from  his  pocket  when- 
ever he  had  a  moment  to  spare  —  often  on  the  top 
of  an  omnibus.  Only  when  the  first  draft  was 
complete  did  he  proceed  to  set  the  scenes,  as  it 
were,  and  map  out  the  stage-management.  On  the 
other  hand,  one  has  heard  of  playwrights  whose 
first  step  in  setting  to  work  upon  a  particular  act 
was  to  construct  a  complete  model  of  the  scene, 
and  people  it  with  mannikins  to  represent  the 
characters.  As  a  general  practice,  this  is  scarcely 
to  be  commended.  It  is  wiser,  one  fancies,  to  have 
the  matter  of  the  scene  pretty  fully  roughed-out 
before  details  of  furniture,  properties,  and  position 
are  arranged.1  It  may  happen,  indeed,  that  some 
natural  phenomenon,  some  property  or  piece  of 
furniture,  is  the  very  pivot  of  the  scene ;  in  which 

1  One  is  not  surprised  to  learn  that  Sardou  "  did  his 
stage-management  as  he  went  along,"  and  always  knew  ex- 
actly the  position  of  his  characters  from  moment  to  moment 


66  PLAY-MAKING 

case  it  must,  of  course,  be  posited  from  the  first. 
From  the  very  moment  of  his  conceiving  the  fourth 
act  of  Le  Tartufe,  Moliere  must  have  had  clearly 
in  view  the  table  under  which  Orgon  hides;  and 
Sheridan  cannot  have  got  very  far  with  the  Screen 
Scene  before  he.  had  mentally  placed  the  screen. 
But  even  where  a  great  deal  turns  on  some  indi- 
vidual object,  the  detailed  arrangements  of  the 
scene  may  in  most  cases  be  taken  for  granted  until 
a  late  stage  in  its  working  out. 

One  proviso,  however,  must  be  made;  where 
any  important  effect  depends  upon  a  given  object, 
or  a  particular  arrangement  of  the  scene,  the  play- 
wright cannot  too  soon  assure  himself  that  the 
object  comes  well  within  the  physical  possibilities 
of  the  stage,  and  that  the  arrangement  is  optically  l 
possible  and  effective.  Few  things,  indeed,  are 
quite  impossible  to  the  modern  stage ;  but  there  are 
many  that  had  much  better  not  be  attempted.  It 
need  scarcely  be  added  that  the  more  serious  a 
play  is,  or  aspires  to  be,  the  more  carefully  should 
the  author  avoid  any  such  effects  as  call  for  the 
active  collaboration  of  the  stage-carpenter,  ma- 
chinist, or  electrician.  Even  when  a  mechanical 

1  And  aurally,  it  may  be  added.  Sarcey  comments  on 
the  impossibility  of  a  scene  in  Zola's  Pot  aouille  in  which 
the  so-called  "  lovers,"  Octave  Mouret  and  Blanche,  throw 
open  the  window  of  the  garret  in  which  they  are  quarrel- 
ling, and  hear  the  servants  in  the  courtyard  outside  discuss- 
ing their  intrigue.  In  order  that  the  comments  of  the 
servants  might  reach  the  ears  of  the  audience,  they  had 
to  be  shouted  in  a  way  (says  M.  Sarcey)  that  was  fatal  to 
the  desired  illusion. 


ROUTINE   OF    COMPOSITION        67 

effect  can  be  produced  to  perfection,  the  very  fact 
that  the  audience  cannot  but  admire  the  ingenuity 
displayed,  and  wonder  "  how  it  is  done,"  implies 
a  failure  of  that  single-minded  attention  to  the 
essence  of  the  matter  in  hand  which  the  drama- 
tist would  strive  to  beget  and  maintain.  A  small 
but  instructive  example  of  a  difficult  effect,  such 
as  the  prudent  playwright  will  do  well  to  avoid, 
occurs  in  the  third  act  of  Ibsen's  Little  Eyolf. 
During  the  greater  part  of  the  act,  the  flag  in  All- 
mers's  garden  is  hoisted  to  half-mast  in  token  of 
mourning;  until  at  the  end,  when  he  and  Rita 
attain  a  serener  frame  of  mind,  he  runs  it  up  to 
the  truck.  Now,  from  the  poetic  and  symbolic 
point  of  view,  this  flag  is  all  that  can  be  desired; 
but  from  the  practical  point  of  view  it  presents 
grave  difficulties.  Nothing  is  so  pitifully  ineffect- 
ive as  a  flag  in  a  dead  calm,  drooping  nervelessly 
against  the  mast;  and  though,  no  doubt,  by  an 
ingenious  arrangement  of  electric  fans,  it  might  be 
possible  to  make  this  flag  flutter  in  the  breeze,  the 
very  fact  of  its  doing  so  would  tend  to  set  the 
audience  wondering  by  what  mechanism  the  effect 
was  produced,  instead  of  attending  to  the  soul- 
struggles  of  Rita  and  Allmers.  It  would  be  absurd 
to  blame  Ibsen  for  overriding  theatrical  prudence 
in  such  a  case;  I  merely  point  out  to  beginners 
that  it  is  wise,  before  relying  on  an  effect  of  this 
order,  to  make  sure  that  it  is,  not  only  possible, 
but  convenient  from  the  practical  point  of  view. 
In  one  or  two  other  cases  Ibsen  strained  the  re- 


68  PLAY-MAKING 

sources  of  the  stage.  The  illumination  in  the  last 
act  of  Pillars  of  Society  cannot  be  carried  out  as 
he  describes  it ;  or  rather,  if  it  were  carried  out  on 
some  exceptionally  large  and  well-equipped  stage, 
the  feat  of  the  mechanician  would  eclipse  the  in- 
vention of  the  poet.  On  the  other  hand,  the  abode 
of  the  Wild  Duck  in  the  play  of  that  name  is  a  con- 
ception entirely  consonant  with  the  optics  of  the 
theatre;  for  no  detail  at  all  need  be,  or  ought  to 
be,  visible,  and  a  vague  effect  of  light  is  all  that  is 
required.  Only  in  his  last  melancholy  effort  did 
Ibsen,  in  a  play  designed  for  representation,  de- 
mand scenic  effects  entirely  beyond  the  resources 
of  any  theatre  not  specially  fitted  for  spectacular 
drama,  and  possible,  even  in  such  a  theatre,  only 
in  some  ridiculously  makeshift  form. 

There  are  two  points  of  routine  on  which  I  am 
compelled  to  speak  in  no  uncertain  voice  —  two 
practices  which  I  hold  to  be  almost  equally  con- 
demnable.  In  the  first  place,  no  playwright  who 
understands  the  evolution  of  the  modern  theatre 
can  nowadays  use  in  his  stage-directions  the  ab- 
horrent jargon  of  the  early  nineteenth  century. 
When  one  comes  across  a  manuscript  bespattered 
with  such  cabalistic  signs  as  "  R.  2  E.,"  "  R.  C.," 
"L.C,"  "L.U.E.,"  and  so  forth,  one  sees  at  a 
glance  that  the  writer  has  neither  studied  dramatic 
literature  nor  thought  out  for  himself  the  condi- 
tions of  the  modern  theatre,  but  has  found  his  dra- 
matic education  between  the  buff  covers  of 
French's  Acting  Edition.  Some  beginners  imagine 


ROUTINE    OF    COMPOSITION        69 

that  a  plentiful  use  of  such  abbreviations  will  be 
taken  as  a  proof  of  their  familiarity  with  the 
stage;  whereas,  in  fact,  it  only  shows  their  un- 
familiarity  with  theatrical  history.  They  might  as 
well  set  forth  to  describe  a  modern  battleship  in 
the  nautical  terminology  of  Captain  Marryat. 
"  Right  First  Entrance,"  "  Left  Upper  Entrance," 
and  so  forth,  are  terms  belonging  to  the  period 
when  there  were  no  "  box  "  rooms  or  "  set "  ex- 
teriors on  the  stage,  when  the  sides  of  each  scene 
were  composed  of  "  wings  "  shoved  on  in  grooves, 
and  entrances  could  be  made  between  each  pair  of 
wings.  Thus,  "  R.  I  E."  meant  the  entrance  be- 
tween the  proscenium  and  the  first  "  wing  "  on  the 
right,  "  R.  2  E."  meant  the  entrance  between  the 
first  pair  of  "wings,"  and  so  forth.  "  L.U.E." 
meant  the  entrance  at  the  left  between  the  last 
"  wing  "  and  the  back  cloth.  Now  grooves  and 
"  wings  "  have  disappeared  from  the  stage.  The 
"  box  "  room  is  entered,  like  any  room  in  real  life, 
by  doors  or  French  windows ;  and  the  only  rational 
course  is  to  state  the  position  of  your  doors  in 
your  opening  stage-direction,  and  thereafter  to  say 
in  plain  language  by  which  door  an  entrance  or  an 
exit  is  to  be  made.  In  exterior  scenes  where,  for 
example,  trees  or  clumps  of  shrubbery  answer  in 
a  measure  to  the  old  "  wings,"  the  old  terminology 
may  not  be  quite  meaningless ;  but  it  is  far  better 
eschewed.  It  is  a  good  general  rule  to  avoid,  so 
far  as  possible,  expressions  which  show  that  the 
author  has  a  stage  scene,  and  not  an  episode  of  real 


70  PLAY-MAKING 

life,  before  his  eyes.  Men  of  the  theatre  are 
the  last  to  be  impressed  by  theatrical  jargon; 
and  when  the  play  comes  to  be  printed,  the  gen- 
eral reader  is  merely  bewildered  and  annoyed  by 
technicalities,  which  tend,  moreover,  to  disturb  his 
illusion. 

A  still  more  emphatic  warning  must  be  given 
against  another  and  more  recent  abuse  in  the  mat- 
ter of  stage-directions.  The  "  L.U.E.'s,"  indeed, 
are  bound  very  soon  to  die  a  natural  death.  The 
people  who  require  to  be  warned  against  them 
are,  as  a  rule,  scarcely  worth  warning.  But  it  is 
precisely  the  cleverest  people  (to  use  clever  in  a 
somewhat  narrow  sense)  who  are  apt  to  be  led 
astray  by  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw's  practice  of  expand- 
ing his  stage-directions  into  essays,  disquisitions, 
monologues,  pamphlets.  This  is  a  practice  which 
goes  far  to  justify  the  belief  of  some  foreign 
critics  that  the  English,  or,  since  Mr.  Shaw  is  in 
question,  let  us  say  the  inhabitants  of  the  British 
Islands,  are  congenitally  incapable  of  producing 
a  work  of  pure  art.  Our  novelists  —  Fielding, 
Thackeray,  George  Eliot  —  have  been  sufficiently, 
though  perhaps  not  unjustly,  called  over  the  coals 
for  their  habit  of  coming  in  front  of  their  canvas, 
and  either  gossiping  with  the  reader  or  preaching 
at  him.  But,  if  it  be  a  sound  maxim  that  the  novel- 
ist should  not  obtrude  his  personality  on  his 
reader,  how  much  more  is  this  true  of  the  drama- 
tist! When  the  dramatist  steps  to  the  footlights 
and  begins  to  lecture,  all  illusion  is  gone.  It  may 


ROUTINE   OF   COMPOSITION        71 

be  said  that,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  this  does  not  occur : 
that  on  the  stage  we  hear  no  more  of  the  disqui- 
sitions of  Mr.  Shaw  and  his  imitators  than  we  do 
of  the  curt,  and  often  non-existent,  stage-directions 
of  Shakespeare  and  his  contemporaries.  To  this 
the  reply  is  twofold.  First,  the  very  fact  that  these 
disquisitions  are  written  proves  that  the  play  is  de- 
signed to  be  printed  and  read,  and  that  we  are, 
therefore,  justified  in  applying  to  it  the  standard 
of  what  may  be  called  literary  illusion.  Second, 
when  a  playwright  gets  into  the  habit  of  talking 
around  his  characters,  he  inevitably,  even  if  uncon- 
sciously, slackens  his  endeavour  to  make  them  ex- 
press themselves  as  completely  as  may  be  in  their 
own  proper  medium  of  dramatic  action  and  dia- 
logue. You  cannot  with  impunity  mix  up  two  dis- 
tinct forms  of  art  —  the  drama  and  the  sociological 
essay  or  lecture.  To  Mr.  Shaw,  of  course,  much 
may,  and  must,  be  forgiven.  His  stage-directions 
are  so  brilliant  that  some  one,  some  day,  will  as- 
suredly have  them  spoken  by  a  lecturer  in  the 
orchestra  while  the  action  stands  still  on  the  stage. 
Thus,  he  will  have  begotten  a  bastard,  but  highly 
entertaining,  form  of  art.  My  protest  has  no  prac- 
tical application  to  him,  for  he  is  a  standing  ex- 
ception to  all  rules.  It  is  to  the  younger  generation 
that  I  appeal  not  to  be  misled  by  his  seductive 
example.  They  have  little  chance  of  rivalling  him 
as  sociological  essayists;  but  if  they  treat  their  art 
seriously,  and  as  a  pure  art,  they  may  easily  sur- 
pass him  as  dramatists.  By  adopting  his  practice 


72  PLAY-MAKING 

they  will  tend  to  produce,  not  fine  works  of  art, 
but  inferior  sociological  documents.  They  will  im- 
pair their  originality  and  spoil  their  plays  in  order 
to  do  comparatively  badly  what  Mr.  Shaw  has 
done  incomparably  well. 

The  common-sense  rule  as  to  stage  directions  is 
absolutely  plain;  be  they  short,  or  be  they  long, 
they  ought  always  to  be  impersonal.  The  play- 
wright who  cracks  jokes  in  his  stage-directions,  or 
indulges  in  graces  of  style,  is  intruding  himself 
between  the  spectator  and  the  work  of  art,  to  the 
inevitable  detriment  of  the  illusion.  In  preparing 
a  play  for  the  press,  the  author  should  make  his 
stage-directions  as  brief  as  is  consistent  with  clear- 
ness. Few  readers  will  burden  their  memory  with 
long  and  detailed  descriptions.  When  a  new  char- 
acter of  importance  appears,  a  short  description  of 
his  or  her  personal  appearance  and  dress  may  be 
helpful  to  the  reader;  but  even  this  should  be 
kept  impersonal.  Moreover,  as  a  play  has  always 
to  be  read  before  it  can  be  rehearsed  or  acted, 
it  is  no  bad  plan  to  make  the  stage-directions,  from 
the  first,  such  as  tend  to  bring  the  play  home  clearly 
to  the  reader's  mental  vision.  And  here  I  may 
mention  a  principle,  based  on  more  than  mere 
convenience,  which  some  playwrights  observe  with 
excellent  results.  Not  merely  in  writing  stage- 
directions,  but  in  visualizing  a  scene,  the  idea  of 
the  stage  should,  as  far  as  possible,  be  banished 
from  the  author's  mind.  He  should  see  and  de- 
scribe the  room,  the  garden,  the  sea-shore,  or  what- 


ROUTINE    OF    COMPOSITION        73 

ever  the  place  of  his  action  may  be,  not  as  a  stage- 
scene,  but  as  a  room,  garden,  or  sea-shore  in  the 
real  world.  The  cultivation  of  this  habit  ought  to 
be,  and  I  believe  is  in  lome  cases,  a  safeguard 
against  theatricality. 


V 

DRAMATIS   PERSON AE 

THE  theme  being  chosen,  the  next  step  will 
probably  be  to  determine  what  characters 
shall  be  employed  in  developing  it.  Most  play- 
wrights, I  take  it,  draw  up  a  provisional  Dramatis 
Personae  before  beginning  the  serious  work  of 
construction.  Ibsen  seems  always  to  have  done  so ; 
but,  in  some  of  his  plays,  the  list  of  persons  was 
at  first  considerably  larger  than  it  ultimately  be- 
came. The  frugal  poet  sometimes  saved  up  the 
characters  rejected  from  one  play,  and  used  them 
in  another.  Thus  Boletta  and  Hilda  Wangel  were 
originally  intended  to  have  been  the  daughters  of 
Rosmer  and  Beata;  and  the  delightful  Foldal  of 
John  Gabriel  Borkman  was  a  character  left  over 
from  The  Lady  from  the  Sea. 

The  playwright  cannot  proceed  far  in  planning 
out  his  work  without  determining,  roughly  at  any 
rate,  what  auxiliary  characters  he  means  to  employ. 
There  are  in  every  play  essential  characters,  with- 
out whom  the  theme  is  unthinkable,  and  auxiliary 
characters,  not  indispensable  to  the  theme,  but  sim- 
ply convenient  for  filling  in  the  canvas  and  carrying 
on  the  action.  It  is  not  always  possible  to  decide 
whether  a  character  is  essential  or  auxiliary  —  it 

74 


DRAMATIS    PERSONAE  75 

depends  upon  how  we  define  the  theme.  In  Hamlet, 
for  example,  Hamlet,  Claudius,  and  Gertrude  are 
manifestly  essential :  for  the  theme  is  the  hesitancy 
of  a  young  man  of  a  certain  temperament  in  tak- 
ing vengeance  upon  the  seducer  of  his  mother  and 
murderer  of  his  father.  But  is  Ophelia  essential, 
or  merely  auxiliary?  Essential,  if  we  consider 
Hamlet's  pessimistic  feeling  as  to  woman  and  the 
"  breeding  of  sinners  "  a  necessary  part  of  his 
character;  auxiliary,  if  we  take  the  view  that  with- 
out this  feeling  he  would  still  have  been  Hamlet, 
and  the  action,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  the  same. 
The  remaining  characters,  on  the  other  hand,  are 
clearly  auxiliary.  This  is  true  even  of  the  Ghost: 
for  Hamlet  might  have  learnt  of  his  father's  mur- 
der in  fifty  other  ways.  Polonius,  Laertes,  Hora- 
tio, and  the  rest  might  all  have  been  utterly 
different,  or  might  never  have  existed  at  all,  and 
yet  the  essence  of  the  play  might  have  remained 
intact. 

It  would  be  perfectly  possible  to  write  a  Hamlet 
after  the  manner  of  Racine,  in  which  there  should 
be  only  six  personages  instead  of  Shakespeare's 
six-and-twenty :  and  in  this  estimate  I  assume 
Ophelia  to  be  an  essential  character.  The  dramatis 
personae  would  be :  Hamlet,  his  confidant ;  Ophelia, 
her  confidant ;  and  the  King  and  Queen,  who  would 
serve  as  confidants  to  each  other.  Indeed,  an 
economy  of  one  person  might  be  affected  by  mak- 
ing the  Queen  (as  she  naturally  might)  play  the 
part  of  confidant  to  Ophelia. 


76  PLAY-MAKING 

Shakespeare,  to  be  sure,  did  not  deliberately 
choose  between  his  own  method  and  that  of 
Racine.  Classic  concentration  was  wholly  unsuited 
to  the  physical  conditions  of  the  Elizabethan  stage, 
on  which  external  movement  and  bustle  were  im- 
peratively demanded.  But  the  modern  playwright 
has  a  wide  latitude  of  choice  in  this  purely  technical 
matter.  He  may  work  out  his  plot  with  the 
smallest  possible  number  of  characters,  or  he  may 
introduce  a  crowd  of  auxiliary  personages.  The 
good  craftsman  will  be  guided  by  the  nature  of  his 
theme.  In  a  broad  social  study  or  a  picturesque 
romance,  you  may  have  as  many  auxiliary  figures 
as  you  please.  In  a  subtle  comedy,  or  a  psycho- 
logical tragedy,  the  essential  characters  should  have 
the  stage  as  much  as  possible  to  themselves.  In 
Becque's  La  Parisienne  there  are  only  four  char- 
acters and  a  servant;  in  Rostand's  Cyrano  de 
Bergerac  there  are  fifty- four  personages  named  in 
the  playbill,  to  say  nothing  of  supernumeraries.  In 
Peer  Gynt,  a  satiric  phantasmagory,  Ibsen  intro- 
duces some  fifty  individual  characters,  with  num- 
berless supernumeraries;  in  An  Enemy  of  the 
People,  a  social  comedy,  he  has  eleven  char- 
acters and  a  crowd ;  for  Ghosts  and  Rosmersholm, 
psychological  tragedies,  six  persons  apiece  are 
sufficient. 

It  can  scarcely  be  necessary,  at  this  time  of  day, 
to  say  much  on  the  subject  of  nomenclature.  One 
does  occasionally,  in  manuscripts  of  a  quite  hope- 
less type,  find  the  millionaire's  daughter  figuring 


DRAMATIS    PERSONAE  77 

as  "  Miss  Aurea  Golden,"  and  her  poor  but 
sprightly  cousin  as  "  Miss  Lalage  Gay  " ;  but  the 
veriest  tyro  realizes,  as  a  rule,  that  this  sort  of 
punning  characterization  went  out  with  the  eigh- 
teenth century,  or  survived  into  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury only  as  a  flagrant  -anachronism,  like  knee- 
breeches  and  hair-powder. 

A  curious  essay  might  be  written  on  the  reasons 
why  such  names  as  Sir  John  Brute,  Sir  Tunbelly 
Clumsy,  Sir  Peter  Teazle,  Sir  Anthony  Absolute, 
Sir  Lucius  O'Trigger,  Lord  Foppington,  Lord 
Rake,  Colonel  Bully,  Lovewell,  Heartfree,  Gripe, 
Shark  and  the  rest  were  regarded  as  a  matter  of 
course  in  "  the  comedy  of  manners,"  but  have 
become  offensive  to-day,  except  in  deliberate  imi- 
tations of  the  eighteenth-century  style.  The  ex- 
planation does  not  lie  merely  in  the  contrast  be- 
tween "  conventional  "  comedy  and  "  realistic  " 
drama.  Our  forefathers  (whatever  Lamb  may 
say)  did  not  consciously  place  their  comedy  in  a 
realm  of  convention,  but  generally  considered 
themselves,  and  sometimes  were,  realists.  The 
fashion  of  label-names,  if  we  may  call  them  so, 
came  down  from  the  Elizabethans,  who,  again,  bor- 
rowed it  from  the  Mediaeval  Moralities.1  Shake- 

1  Partially,  too,  they  were  under  the  influence  of  antiq- 
uity; but  the  ancients  were  very  discreet  in  their  use  of 
significant  names.  Only  in  satyr-plays,  in  the  comic  epics, 
and  for  a  few  extravagant  characters  in  comedy  (such  as 
the  boastful  soldier)  were  grotesque  appellations  employed. 
For  the  rest,  the  Greek  habit  of  nomenclature  made  it  pos- 
sible to  use  significant  names  which  were  at  the  same  time 
probable  enough  in  daily  life.  For  example,  a  slave  might 


78  PLAY-MAKING 

speare  himself  gave  us  Master  Slender  and  Justice 
Shallow;  but  it  was  in  the  Jonsonian  comedy  of 
types  that  the  practice  of  advertising  a  "  humour  " 
or  "passion"  in  a  name  (English  or  Italian)  es- 
tablished itself  most  firmly.  Hence  such  strange 
appellatives  as  Sir  Epicure  Mammon,  Sir  Amorous 
La  Foole,  Morose,  Wellbred,  Downright,  Fastidius 
Brisk,  Volpone,  Corbaccio,  Sordido,  and  Fallace. 
After  the  Restoration,  Jonson,  Beaumont  and 
Fletcher,  and  Massinger  were,  for  a  time,  more 
popular  than  Shakespeare ;  so  that  the  label-names 
seemed  to  have  the  sanction  of  the  giants  that  were 
before  the  Flood.  Even  when  comedy  began  to 
deal  with  individuals  rather  than  mere  incarnations 
of  a  single  "  humour,"  the  practice  of  giving  them 
obvious  pseudonyms  held  its  ground.  Probably  it 
was  reinforced  by  the  analogous  practice  which  ob- 
tained in  journalism,  in  which  real  persons  were 
constantly  alluded  to  (and  libelled)  under  fictitious 
designations,  more  or  less  transparent  to  the  in- 
itiated. Thus  a  label-name  did  not  carry  with  it 
a  sense  of  unreality,  but  rather,  perhaps,  a  vague 
suggestion  of  covert  reference  to  a  real  person. 
I  must  not  here  attempt  to  trace  the  stages  by  which 
the  fashion  went  out.  It  could  doubtless  be  shown 
that  the  process  of  change  ran  parallel  to  the 
shrinkage  of  the  "  apron  "  and  the  transformation 
of  the  platform-stage  into  the  picture-stage.  That 

be  called  Onesimus,  "useful,"  or  a  soldier  Polemon,  to 
imply  his  warlike  function;  but  both  names  would  be 
familiar  to  the  audience  in  actual  use. 


DRAMATIS    PERSONAE  79 

transformation  was  completed  about  the  middle  of 
the  nineteenth  century ;  and  it  was  about  that  time 
that  label-names  made  their  latest  appearances  in 
works  of  any  artistic  pretension  —  witness  the 
Lady  Gay  Spanker  of  London  Assurance,  and  the 
Captain  Dudley  (or  "  Deadly  ")  Smooth  of  Money. 
Faint  traces  of  the  practice  survive  in  T.  W. 
Robertson,  as  in  his  master,  Thackeray.  But  it 
was  in  his  earliest  play  of  any  note  that  he  called 
a  journalist  Stylus.  In  his  later  comedies  the 
names  are  admirably  chosen:  they  are  charac- 
teristic without  eccentricity  or  punning.  One  feels 
that  Eccles  in  Caste  could  not  possibly  have  borne 
any  other  name.  How  much  less  living  would 
he  be  had  he  been  called  Mr.  Soaker  or  Mr. 
Tosspot ! 

Characteristic  without  eccentricity  —  that  is 
what  a  name  ought  to  be.  As  the  characteristic 
quality  depends  upon  a  hundred  indefinable,  sub- 
conscious associations,  it  is  clearly  impossible  to 
suggest  any  principle  of  choice.  The  only  gen- 
eral rule  that  can  be  laid  down  is  that  the  key  of 
the  nomenclature,  so  to  speak,  mav  rightly  vary 
with  the  key  of  the  play  —  that  farcical  names  are, 
within  limits,  admissible  in  farce,  eccentric  names 
in  eccentric  comedy,  while  soberly  appropriate 
names  are  alone  in  place  in  serious  plays.  Some 
dramatists  are  habitually  happy  in  their  nomen- 
clature, others  much  less  so.  Ibsen  would  often 
change  a  name  three  or  four  times  in  the  course  of 
writing  a  play,  until  at  last  he  arrived  at  one  which 


80  PLAY-MAKING 

seemed  absolutely  to  fit  the  character;  but  the 
appropriateness  of  his  names  is  naturally  lost  upon 
foreign  audiences. 

One  word  may  perhaps  be  said  on  the  recent 
fashion  —  not  to  say  fad  —  of  suppressing-  in  the 
printed  play  the  traditional  list  of  "  Dramatis 
Personae."  Bjornson,  in  some  of  his  later  plays, 
was,  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  the  first  of  the  moderns 
to  adopt  this  plan.  I  do  not  know  whether  his  ex- 
ample has  influenced  certain  English  playwrights, 
or  whether  they  arrived  independently  at  the  same 
austere  principle,  by  sheer  force  of  individual 
genius.  The  matter  is  a  trifling  one  —  so  trifling 
that  the  departure  from  established  practice  has 
something  of  the  air  of  a  pedantry.  It  is  not,  on 
the  whole,  to  be  approved.  It  adds  perceptibly  to 
the  difficulty  which  some  readers  experience  in 
picking  up  the  threads  of  a  play;  and  it  deprives 
other  readers  of  a  real  and  appreciable  pleasure  of 
anticipation.  There  is  a  peculiar  and  not  irrational 
charm  in  looking  down  a  list  of  quite  unknown 
names,  and  thinking :  "  In  the  course  of  three  hours, 
I  shall  know  these  people :  I  shall  have  read  their 
hearts:  I  shall  have  lived  with  them  through  a 
great  crisis  in  their  lives:  some  of  them  may  be 
my  friends  for  ever."  It  is  one  of  the  glories  and 
privileges  of  the  dramatist's  calling  that  he  can 
arouse  in  us  this  eager  and  poignant  expectation; 
and  I  cannot  commend  his  wisdom  in  deliberately 
taking  the  edge  off  it,  and  making  us  feel  as  though 
we  were  not  sitting  down  to  a  play,  but  to  a  sort 


DRAMATIS    PERSONAE  81 

of  conversational  novel.  A  list  of  characters,  it  is 
true,  may  also  affect  one  with  acute  anticipations 
of  boredom;  but  I  have  never  yet  found  a  play 
less  tedious  by  reason  of  the  suppression  of  the 
"  Dramatis  Personae." 


BOOK  II 
THE   BEGINNING 


x^r 


VI 

THE  POINT  OF  ATTACK:  SHAKESPEARE  AND 
IBSEN 

THOUGH,  as  we  have  already  noted,  the  writ- 
ing of  plays  does  not  always  follow  the 
chronological  sequence  of  events,  in  discussing  the 
process  of  their  evolution  we  are  bound  to  assume 
that  the  playwright  begins  at  the  beginning,  and 
proceeds  in  orderly  fashion,  by  way  of  the  middle, 
to  the  end.  It  was  one  of  Aristotle's  requirements 
that  a  play  should  have  a  beginning,  middle  and 
end;  and  though  it  may  seem  that  it  scarcely 
needed  an  Aristotle  to  lay  down  so  self-evident 
a  proposition,  the  fact  is  that  playwrights  are  more 
than  sufficiently  apt  to  ignore  or  despise  the  rule.1 
Especially  is  there  a  tendency  to  rebel  against  the 
requirement  that  a  play  should  have  an  end.  We 
have  seen  a  good  many  plays  of  late  which  do 
not  end,  but  simply  leave  off:  at  their  head  we 
might  perhaps  place  Ibsen's  Ghosts.  But  let  us  not 

1  Writing  of  Le  Supplice  d'une  Femme,  Alexandra  Du- 
mas fits  said :  "  This  situation  I  declare  to  be  one  of  the 
most  dramatic  and  interesting  in  all  drama.  But  a  situa- 
tion is  not  an  idea.  An  idea  has  a  beginning,  a  middle  and 
an  end :  an  exposition,  a  development,  a  conclusion.  Any 
one  can  relate  a  dramatic  situation :  the  art  lies  in  prepar- 
ing it,  getting  it  accepted,  rendering  it  possible,  especially  in 
untying  the  knot." 

8* 


86  PLAY-MAKING 

anticipate.  For  the  moment,  what  we  have  to  in- 
quire is  where,  and  how,  a  play  ought  to  begin. 

In  life  there,  are  no  such  things  as  beginnings. 
Even  a  man's  birth  is  a  quite  arbitrary  point  at 
which  to  launch  his  biography;  for  the  deter- 
mining factors  in  his  career  are  to  be  found  in 
persons,  events,  and  conditions  that  existed  before 
he  was  ever  thought  of.  For  the  biographer,  how- 
ever, and  for  the  novelist  as  a  writer  of  fictitious 
biography,  birth  forms  a  good  conventional  start- 
ing-point. He  can  give  a  chapter  or  so  to 
"  Ancestry,"  and  then  relate  the  adventures  of  his 
hero  from  the  cradle  onwards.  But  the  dramatist, 
as  we  have  seen,  deals,  not  with  protracted  se- 
quences of  events,  but  with  short,  sharp  crises. 
The  question  for  him,  therefore,  is:  at  what  mo- 
-^  ment  of  the  crisis,  or  of  its  antecedents,  he  had 
better  ring  up  his  curtain  ?  At  this  point  he  is  like 
the  photographer  studying  his  "  finder  "  in  order  to 
determine  how  much  of  a  given  prospect  he  can 
"  get  in." 

^  The  answer  to  the  question  depends  on  many 
things,  but  chiefly  on  the  nature  of  the  crisis  and 
the  nature  of  the  impression  which  the  playwright 
desires  to  make  upon  his  audience.  If  his  play 
be  a  comedy,  and  if  his  object  be  gently  and  quietly 

to  interest  and  entertain,  the  chances  are  that  he 

• 

begins  by  showing  us  his  personages  in  their  nor- 
mal state,  concisely  indicates  their  characters,  cir- 
cumstances and  relations,  and  then  lets  the  crisis 
develop  from  the  outset  before  our  eyes.  If,  on 


THE    POINT    OF   ATTACK  87 

the  other  hand,  his  play  be  of  a  more  stirring  de- 
scription, and  he  wants  to  seize  the  spectator's 
attention  firmly  from  the  start,  he  will  probably  go 
straight  at  his  crisis,  plunging,  perhaps,  into  the 
very  middle  of  it,  even  at  the  cost  of  having  after- 
wards to  go  back  in  order  to  put  the  audience  in 
possession  of  the  antecedent  circumstances.  In  a 
third  type  of  play,  common  of  late  years,  and  es- 
pecially affected  by  Ibsen,  the  curtain  rises  on  a 
surface  aspect  of  profound  peace,  which  is  pres- 
ently found  to  be  but  a  thin  crust  over  an  abso- 
lutely volcanic  condition  of  affairs,  the  origin  of 
which  has  to  be  traced  backwards,  it  may  be  for 
many  years. 

Let  us  glance  at  a  few  of  Shakespeare's  open- 
ings, and  consider  at  what  points  he  attacks  his 
various  themes.  Of  his  comedies,  all  except  one 
begin  with  a  simple  conversation,  showing  a  state 
or  affairs  from  which  the  crisis  develops  with  more 
or  less  rapidity,  but  in  which  it  is  as  yet  imper- 
ceptibly latent.  In  no  case  does  he  plunge  into 
the  middle  of  his  subject,  leaving  its  antecedents 
to  be  stated  in  what  is  technically  called  an  "  expo- 
sition." Neither  in  tragedy  nor  in  comedy,  indeed, 
was  this  Shakespeare's  method.  In  his  historical 
plays  he  relied  to  some  extent  on  his  hearers' 
knowledge  of  history,  whether  gathered  from 
books  or  from  previous  plays  of  the  historical 
series;  and  where  such  knowledge  was  not  to  be 
looked  for,  he  would  expound  the  situation  in  good 
set  terms,  like  those  of  a  Euripidean  Prologue. 


88  PLAY-MAKING 

But  the  chronicle-play  is  a  species  apart,  and 
practically  an  extinct  species:  we  need  not  pause 
to  study  its  methods.  In  his  fictitious  plays,  with 
two  notable  exceptions,  it  was  Shakespeare's  con- 
stant practice  to  bring  the  whole  action  within  the 
frame  of  the  picture,  opening  at  such  a  point 
that  no  retrospect  should  be  necessary,  beyond 
what  could  be  conveyed  in  a  few  casual  words. 
The  exceptions  are  The  Tempest  and  Hamlet,  to 
which  we  shall  return  in  due  course. 

How  does  The  Merchant  of  Venice  open  ?  With 
a  long  conversation  exhibiting  the  character  of 
Antonio,  the  friendship  between  him  and  Bassanio, 
the  latter's  financial  straits,  and  his  purpose  of  woo- 
ing Portia.  The  second  scene  displays  the  char- 
acter of  Portia,  and  informs  us  of  her  father's 
device  with  regard  to  her  marriage;  but  this  in- 
formation is  conveyed  in  three  or  four  lines.  Not 
till  the  third  scene  do  we  see  or  hear  of  Shylock, 
and  not  until  very  near  the  end  of  the  act  is  there 
any  foreshadowing  of  what  is  to  be  the  main  crisis 
of  the  play.  Not  a  single  antecedent  event  has  to 
be  narrated  to  us ;  for  the  mere  fact  that  Antonio 
has  been  uncivil  to  Shylock,  and  shown  disap- 
proval of  his  business  methods,  can  scarcely  be 
regarded  as  a  preliminary  outside  the  frame  of 
the  picture. 

In  As  You  Like  It  there  are  no  preliminaries  to 
be  stated  beyond  the  facts  that  Orlando  is  at 
enmity  with  his  elder  brother,  and  that  Duke 
Frederick  has  usurped  the  coronet  and  dukedom  of 


THE   POINT   OF   ATTACK  89 

Rosalind's  father.  These  facts  being  made  ap- 
parent without  any  sort  of  formal  exposition,  the 
crisis  of  the  play  rapidly  announces  itself  in  the 
wrestling-match  and  its  sequels.  In  Much  Ado 
About  Nothing  there  is  even  less  of  antecedent  cir- 
cumstance to  be  imparted.  We  learn  in  the  first 
scene,  indeed,  that  Beatrice  and  Benedick  have 
already  met  and  crossed  swords ;  but  this  is  not  in 
the  least  essential  to  the  action;  the  play  might 
have  been  to  all  intents  and  purposes  the  same 
had  they  never  heard  of  each  other  until  after 
the  rise  of  the  curtain.  In  Twelfth  Night  there  is 
a  semblance  of  a  retrospective  exposition  in  the 
scene  between  Viola  and  the  Captain;  but  it  is  of 
the  simplest  nature,  and  conveys  no  information 
beyond  what,  at  a  later  period,  would  have  been 
imparted  on  the  playbill,  thus  — 

"  ORSINO,  Duke  of  Illyria,  in  love  with  Olivia. 
OLIVIA,  an  heiress,  in  mourning  for  her  brother," 

and  so  forth.  In  The  Taming  of  the  Shrew  there 
are  no  antecedents  whatever  to  be  stated.  It  is 
true  that  Lucentio,  in  the  opening  speech,  is  good 
enough  to  inform  Tranio  who  he  is  and  what  he 
is  doing  there  —  facts  with  which  Tranio  is  already 
perfectly  acquainted.  But  this  was  merely  a  con- 
ventional opening,  excused  by  the  fashion  of  the 
time;  it  was  in  no  sense  a  necessary  exposition. 
For  the  rest,  the  crisis  of  the  play  —  the  battle  be- 
tween Katherine  and  Petruchio  —  begins,  develops, 
and  ends  before  our  very  eyes.  In  The  Winter's 


90  PLAY-MAKING 

Tale,  a  brief  conversation  between  Camillo  and 
Archidamus  informs  us  that  the  King  of  Bohemia 
is  paying  a  visit  to  the  King  of  Sicilia;  and  that 
is  absolutely  all  we  need  to  know.  It  was  not  even 
necessary  that  it  should  be  conveyed  to  us  in  this 
way.  The  situation  would  be  entirely  comprehen- 
sible if  the  scene  between  Camillo  and  Archidamus 
were  omitted. 

It  is  needless  to  go  through  the  whole  list  of 
comedies.  The  broad  fact  is  that  in  all  the  plays 
commonly  so  described,  excepting  only  The  Tem- 
pest, the  whole  action  comes  within  the  frame  of 
the  picture.  In  The  Tempest  the  poet  employs  a 
form  of  opening  which  otherwise  he  reserves  for 
tragedies.  The  first  scene  is  simply  an  animated 
tableau,  calculated  to  arrest  the  spectator's  atten- 
tion, without  conveying  to  him  any  knowledge 
either  of  situation  or  character.  Such  gleams  of 
character  as  do,  in  fact,  appear  in  the  dialogue, 
are  scarcely  perceived  in  the  hurly-burly  of  the 
storm.  Then,  in  the  calm  which  ensues,  Prospero 
expounds  to  Miranda  in  great  detail  the  ante- 
cedents of  the  crisis  now  developing.  It  might 
almost  seem,  indeed,  that  the  poet,  in  this,  his 
poetic  last-will-and-testament,  intended  to  warn  his 
successors  against  the  dangers  of  a  long  narrative 
exposition ;  for  Prospero's  story  sends  Miranda  to 
sleep.  Be  this  as  it  may,  we  have  here  a  case  in 
which  Shakespeare  deliberately  adopted  the  plan 
of  placing  on  the  stage,  not  the  whole  crisis,  but 
only  its  culmination,  leaving  its  earlier  stages  to 


THE    POINT    OF   ATTACK  91 

be  conveyed  in  narrative.1  It  would  have  been 
very  easy  for  him  to  have  begun  at  the  beginning 
and  shown  us  in  action  the  events  narrated  by 
Prospero.  This  course  would  have  involved  no 
greater  leap,  either  in  time  or  space,  than  he  had 
perpetrated  in  the  almost  contemporary  Winter's 
Tale;  and  it  cannot  be  said  that  there  would  have 
been  any  difficulty  in  compressing  into  three  acts, 
or  even  two,  the  essentials  of  the  action  of  the  play 
as  we  know  it.  His  reasons  for  departing  from 
his  usual  practice  were  probably  connected  with  the 
particular  occasion  for  which  the  play  was  written. 
He  wanted  to  produce  a  masque  rather  than  a 
drama.  We  must  not,  therefore,  attach  too  much 
significance  to  the  fact  that  in  almost  the  only 
play  in  which  Shakespeare  seems  to  have  built  en- 
tirely out  of  his  own  head,  with  no  previous  play 
or  novel  to  influence  him,  he  adopted  the  plan  of 
going  straight  to  the  catastrophe,  in  which  he  had 
been  anticipated  by  Sophocles  (Oedipus  Rex),  and 
was  to  be  followed  by  Ibsen  (Ghosts,  Rosmers- 
holm,  etc.). 

Coming  now  to  the  five  great  tragedies,  we  find 
that  in  four  of  them  Shakespeare  began,  as  in 
The  Tempest,  with  a  picturesque  and  stirring  epi- 
sode calculated  to  arrest  the  spectator's  attention 
and  awaken  his  interest,  while  conveying  to  him 
little  or  no  information.  The  opening  scene  of 

1  This  is  what  we  regard  as  peculiarly  the  method  of 
Ibsen.  There  is,  however,  this  essential  difference,  that,  in- 
stead of  narrating  his  preliminaries  in  cold  blood,  Ibsen,  in 
his  best  work,  dramatizes  the  narration. 


92  PLAY-MAKING 

Romeo  and  Juliet  is  simply  a  brawl,  bringing  home 
to  us  vividly  the  family  feud  which  is  the  root  of 
the  tragedy,  but  informing  us  of  nothing  beyond 
the  fact  that  such  a  feud  exists.  This  is,  indeed, 
absolutely  all  that  we  require  to  know.  There  is 
not  a  single  preliminary  circumstance,  outside  the 
limits  of  the  play,  that  has  to  be  explained  to  us. 
The  whole  tragedy  germinates  and  culminates 
within  what  the  prologue  calls  "  the  two  hours' 
traffick  of  the  stage."  The  opening  colloquy  of 
the  Witches  in  Macbeth,  strikes  the  eerie  keynote, 
but  does  nothing  more.  Then,  in  the  second  scene, 
we  learn  that  there  has  been  a  great  battle  and 
that  a  nobleman  named  Macbeth  has  won  a  victory 
which  covers  him  with  laurels.  This  can  in  no 
sense  be  called  an  exposition.  It  is  the  account  of 
a  single  event,  not  of  a  sequence;  and  that  event 
is  contemporary,  not  antecedent.  In  the  third 
scene,  the  meeting  of  Macbeth  and  Banquo  with 
the  Witches,  we  have  what  may  be  called  an  expo- 
sition reversed;  not  a  narrative  of  the  past,  but 
a  foreshadowing  of  the  future.  Here  we  touch 
on  one  of  the  subtlest  of  the  playwright's  prob- 
lems —  the  art  of  arousing  anticipation  in  just  the 
right  measure.  But  that  is  not  the  matter  at  pres- 
ent in  hand.1 

In  the  opening  scene  of  Othello  it  is  true  that 
some  talk  passes  between  lago  and  Roderigo  be- 
fore they  raise  the  alarm  and  awaken  Brabantio; 
but  it  is  carefully  non-expository  talk;  it  expounds 
1  See  Chapter  XII. 


THE    POINT    OF   ATTACK  93 

nothing  but  lago's  character.  Far  from  being  a 
real  exception  to  the  rule  that  Shakespeare  liked 
to  open  his  tragedies  with  a  very  crisply  dramatic 
episode,  Othello  may  rather  be  called  its  most  con- 
spicuous example.  The  rousing  of  Brabantio  is 
immediately  followed  by  the  encounter  between  his 
men  and  Othello's,  which  so  finely  brings  out  the 
lofty  character  of  the  Moor;  and  only  in  the 
third  scene,  that  of  the  Doge's  Council,  do  we  pass 
from  shouts  and  swords  to  quiet  discussion  and, 
in  a  sense,  exposition.  Othello's  great  speech, 
while  a  vital  portion  of  the  drama,  is  in  so  far  an 
exposition  that  it  refers  to  events  which  do  not 
come  absolutely  within  the  frame  of  the  picture. 
But  they  are  very  recent,  very  simple,  events. 
If  Othello's  speech  were  omitted,  or  cut  down 
to  half  a  dozen  lines,  we  should  know  much 
less  of  his  character  and  Desdemona's,  but  the 
mere  action  of  the  play  would  remain  perfectly 
comprehensible. 

King  Lear  necessarily  opens  with  a  great  act 
of  state,  the  partition  of  the  kingdom.  A  few 
words  between  Kent  and  Gloucester  show  us  what 
is  afoot,  and  then,  at  one  plunge,  we  are  in  the 
thick  of  the  drama.  There  was  no  opportunity 
here  for  one  of  those  picturesque  tableaux,  exciting 
rather  than  informative,  which  initiate  the  other 
tragedies.  It  would  have  had  to  be  artificially 
dragged  in;  and  it  was  the  less  necessary,  as  the 
partition  scene  took  on,  in  a  very  few  lines,  just 
that  arresting,  stimulating  quality  which  the  poet 


f 


94  PLAY-MAKING 

seems  to  have  desired  in  the  opening:  of  a  play  of 
this  class. 

Finally,  when  we  turn  to  Hamlet,  we  find  a  con- 
summate example  of  the  crisply-touched  opening 
tableau,  making  a  nervous  rather  than  an  intel- 
lectual appeal,  informing  us  of  nothing,  but  ex- 
citing a  vivid,  though  quite  vague,  anticipation. 
The  silent  transit  of  the  Ghost,  desiring  to  speak, 
yet  tongue-tied,  is  certainly  one  of  Shakespeare's 
unrivalled  masterpieces  of  dramatic  craftsmanship. 
One  could  pretty  safely  wager  that  if  the  Ur- 
Hamlet,  on  which  Shakespeare  worked,  were  to 
come  to  light  to-morrow,  this  particular  trait  would 
not  be  found  in  it.  But,  oddly  enough,  into  the 
middle  of  this  admirable  opening  tableau,  Shake- 
speare inserts  a  formal  exposition,  introduced  in  the 
most  conventional  way.  Marcellus,  for  some  un- 
explained reason,  is  ignorant  of  what  is  evidently 
common  knowledge  as  to  the  affairs  of  the  realm, 
and  asks  to  be  informed;  whereupon  Horatio,  in 
a  speech  of  some  twenty-five  lines,  sets  forth  the 
past  relations  between  Norway  and  Denmark,  and 
prepares  us  for  the  appearance  of  Fortinbras  in 
the  fourth  act.  In  modern  stage  versions  all  this 
falls  away,  and  nobody  who  has  not  studied  the 
printed  text  is  conscious  of  its  absence.  The  com- 
mentators, indeed,  have  proved  that  Fortinbras  is 
an  immensely  valuable  element  in  the  moral  scheme 
of  the  play;  but  from  the  point  of  view  of  pure 
drama,  there  is  not  the  slightest  necessity  for  this 
Norwegian-Danish  embroilment  or  its  conse- 


THE    POINT    OF   ATTACK  95 

quences.1  The  real  exposition  —  for  Hamlet  dif- 
fers from  the  other  tragedies  in  requiring  an 
exposition  —  comes  in  the  great  speech  of  the 
Ghost  in  Scene  V.  The  contrast  between  this 
speech  and  Horatio's  lecture  in  the  first  scene, 
exemplifies  the  difference  between  a  dramatized 
and  an  undramatized  exposition.  The  crisis,  as  we 
now  learn,  began  months  or  years  before  the  rise 
of  the  curtain.  It  began  when  Claudius  inveigled 
the  affections  of  Gertrude;  and  it  would  have  been 
possible  for  the  poet  to  have  started  from  this 
point,  and  shown  us  in  action  all  that  he  in  fact 
conveys  to  us  by  way  of  narration.  His  reason 
for  choosing  the  latter  course  is  abundantly 
obvious.2  Hamlet  the  Younger  was  to  be  the 
protagonist :  the  interest  of  the  play  was  to  centre 
in  his  mental  processes.  To  have  awakened  our 
interest  in  Hamlet  the  Elder  would,  therefore,  have 
been  a  superfluity  and  an  irrelevance.  Moreover 
(to  say  nothing  of  the  fact  that  the  Ghost  was 
doubtless  a  popular  figure  in  the  old  play,  and  de- 
manded by  the  public)  it  was  highly  desirable  that 
Hamlet's  knowledge  of  the  usurper's  crime  should 

1  This  must  not  be  taken  to  imply  that,  in  a  good  stage- 
version  of  the  play,  Fortinbras  should  be  altogether  omitted. 
Mr.  Forbes  Robertson,  in  his  Lyceum  revival  of  1897,  found 
several  advantages  in  his  retention.  Among  the  rest,  it 
permitted  the  retention  of  one  of  Hamlet's  most  character- 
istic soliloquies. 

*  I  omit  all  speculation  as  to  the  form  which  the  story 
assumed  in  the  Ur-Hamlet.  We  have  no  evidence  on  the 
point;  and,  as  the  poet  was  no  doubt  free  to  remodel  the 
material  as  he  thought  fit,  even  in  following  his  original  he 
was  making  a  deliberate  artistic  choice. 


96  PLAY-MAKING 

come  to  him  from  a  supernatural  witness,  who 
could  not  be  cross-questioned  or  called  upon  to 
give  material  proof.  This  was  the  readiest  as 
well  as  the  most  picturesque  method  of  begetting 
in  him  that  condition  of  doubt,  real  or  affected, 
which  was  necessary  to  account  for  his  behaviour. 
But  to  have  shown  us  in  action  the  matter  of  the 
Ghost's  revelation  would  have  been  hopelessly  to 
ruin  its  effect.  A  repetition  in  narrative  of  mat- 
ters already  seen  in  action  is  the  grossest  of  tech- 
nical blunders.1  Hamlet  senior,  in  other  words, 
being  indispensable  in  the  spirit,  was  superfluous 
in  the  flesh.  But  there  was  another  and  equally 
cogent  reason  for  beginning  the  play  after  the  com- 
mission of  the  initial  crime  or  crimes.  To  have 
done  otherwise  would  have  been  to  discount,  not 
only  the  Ghost,  but  the  play-scene.  By  a  piece  of 
consummate  ingenuity,  which  may,  of  course,  have 
been  conceived  by  the  earlier  playwright,  the  initial 
incidents  of  the  story  are  in  fact  presented  to  us, 
in  the  guise  of  a  play  within  the  play,  and  as  a 
means  to  the  achievement  of  one  of  the  greatest 

1  Shakespeare  committed  it  in  Romeo  and  Juliet,  where 
he  made  Friar  Laurence,  in  the  concluding  scene,  re-tell 
the  whole  story  of  the  tragedy.  Even  in  so  early  a  play, 
such  a  manifest  redundancy  seems  unaccountable.  A  nar- 
rative of  things  already  seen  may,  of  course,  be  a  trait  of 
character  in  the  person  delivering  it;  but,  in  that  case,  it 
will  generally  be  mendacious  (for  instance,  Falstaff  and  the 
men  in  buckram).  Or  it  may  be  introduced  for  the  sake  of 
its  effect  upon  the  characters  to  whom  the  narration  is  ad- 
dressed. But  in  these  cases  its  purpose  is  no  longer  to  con- 
vey information  to  the  audience  —  it  belongs,  not  to  the  "  in- 
telligence department,"  but  to  the  department  of  analysis. 


THE    POINT    OF   ATTACK  97 

dramatic  effects  in  all  literature.  The  moment  the 
idea  of  the  play-scene  presented  itself  to  the 
author's  mind,  it  became  absolutely  unthinkable 
that  he  should,  to  put  it  vulgarly,  "  queer  the 
pitch "  for  the  Players  by  showing  us  the  real 
facts  of  which  their  performance  was  to  be  the 
counterfeit  presentment.  The  dramatic  effect  of 
the  incidents  was  incalculably  heightened  when 
they  were  presented,  as  in  a  looking-glass,  before 
the  guilty  pair,  with  the  eye  of  the  avenger  boring 
into  their  souls.  And  have  we  not  here,  perhaps, 
a  clue  to  one  of  the  most  frequent  and  essential 
meanings  of  the  word  "  dramatic  "  ?  May  we  not 
say  that  the  dramatic  quality  of  an  incident  is  pro- 
portionate to  the  variety1  and  intensity  of  the 
emotions  involved  in  it? 

All  this  may  appear  too  obvious  to  be  worth 
setting  forth  at  such  length.  Very  likely  it  never 
occurred  to  Shakespeare  that  it  was  possible  to 
open  the  play  at  an  earlier  point;  so  that  he  can 
hardly  be  said  to-  have  exercised  a  deliberate  choice 
in  the  matter.  Nevertheless,  the  very  obviousness 
of  the  considerations  involved  makes  this  a  good 
example  of  the  importance  of  discovering  just  the 
right  point  at  which  to  raise  the  curtain.  In  the 
case  of  The  Tempest,  Shakespeare  plunged  into 

1  I  say  "  variety  "  rather  than  complexity  because  I  take 
it  that  the  emotions  of  all  concerned  are  here  too  intense  to 
be  very  complex.  The  effect  of  the  scene  would  appear  to 
lie  in  the  rapidly  increasing  intensity  of  comparatively 
simple  emotions  in  Hamlet,  in  the  King,  in  the  Queen,  and 
in  the  amazed  and  bewildered  courtiers. 


98  PLAY-MAKING 

the  middle  of  the  crisis  because  his  object  was  to 
produce  a  philosophico-dramatic  entertainment 
rather  than  a  play  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  word. 
He  wanted  room  for  the  enchantments  of  Ariel, 
the  brutishnesses  of  Caliban,  the  humours  of 
Stephano  and  Trinculo  —  all  elements  extrinsic  to 
the  actual  story.  But  in  Hamlet  he  adopted  a  simi- 
lar course  for  purely  dramatic  reasons  —  in  order 
to  concentrate  his  effects  and  present  the  dramatic 
elements  of  his  theme  at  their  highest  potency. 

In  sum,  then,  it  was  Shakespeare's  usual  prac- 
tice, histories  apart,  to  bring  the  whole  action  of 
his  plays  within  the  frame  of  the  picture,  leaving 
little  or  nothing  to  narrative  exposition.  The  two 
notable  exceptions  to  this  rule  are  those  we  have 
just  examined  —  Hamlet  and  The  Tempest.  Fur- 
thermore, he  usually  opened  his  comedies  with  quiet 
conversational  passages,  presenting  the  antecedents 
of  the  crisis  with  great  deliberation.  In  his  trage- 
dies, on  the  other  hand,  he  was  apt  to  lead  off 
with  a  crisp,  somewhat  startling  passage  of  more 
or  less  vehement  action,  appealing  rather  to  the 
nerves  than  to  the  intelligence  —  such  a  passage 
as  Gustav  Freytag,  in  his  Technik  des  Dramas, 
happily  entitles  an  einleitende  Akkord,  an  intro- 
ductory chord.  It  may  be  added  that  this  rule 
holds  good  both  for  Coriolanus  and  for  Julius 
Caesar,  in  which  the  keynote  is  briskly  struck  in 
highly  animated  scenes  of  commotion  among  the 
Roman  populace. 

Let  us  now  look  at  the  practice  of  Ibsen,  which 


THE    POINT   OF   ATTACK  99 

offers  a  sharp  contrast  to  that  of  Shakespeare. 
To  put  it  briefly,  the  plays  in  which  Ibsen  gets 
his  whole  action  within  the  frame  of  the  picture 
are  as  exceptional  as  those  in  which  Shakespeare 
does  not  do  so. 

Ibsen's  practice  in  this  matter  has  been  com- 
pared with  that  of  the  Greek  dramatists,  who  also 
were  apt  to  attack  their  crisis  in  the  middle,  or 
even  towards  the  end,  rather  than  at  the  begin- 
ning. It  must  not  be  forgotten,  however,  that 
there  is  one  gfeat  difference  between  his  position 
and  theirs.  They  could  almost  always  rely  upon 
a  general  knowledge,  on  the  part  of  the  audience, 
of  the  theme  with  which  they  were  dealing.  The 
purpose  even  of  the  Euripidean  prologue  is  not  so 
much  to  state  unknown  facts,  as  to  recall  facts 
vaguely  remembered,  to  state  the  particular  version 
of  a  legend  which  the  poet  proposes  to  adopt,  and 
to  define  the  point  in  the  development  of  the  legend 
at  which  he  is  about  to  set  his  figures  in  motion. 
Ibsen,  on  the  other  hand,  drew  upon  no  store- 
house of  tradition.  He  had  to  convey  to  his 
audience  everything  that  he  wanted  them  to  know ; 
and  this  was  often  a  long  and  complex  series  of 
facts. 

The  earliest  play  in  which  Ibsen  can  be  said  to 
show  maturity  of  craftsmanship  is  The  Vikings  at 
Helgeland.  It  is  curious  to  note  that  both  in  The 
Vikings  and  in  The  Pretenders,  two  plays  which 
are  in  some  measure  comparable  with  Shakespear- 
ean tragedies,  he  opens  with  a  firmly-touched  ein- 


ioo  PLAY-MAKING 

leitende  Akkord.  In  The  Vikings,  Ornulf  and  his 
sons  encounter  and  fight  with  Sigurd  and  his  men, 
very  much  after  the  fashion  of  the  Montagues  and 
Capulets  in  Romeo  and  Juliet.  In  The  Pretenders 
the  rival  factions  of  Haakon  and  Skule  stand  out- 
side the  cathedral  of  Bergen,  intently  awaiting  the 
result  of  the  ordeal  which  is  proceeding  within; 
and  though  they  do  not  there  and  then  come  to 
blows,  the  air  is  electrical  with  their  conflicting 
ambitions  and  passions.  His  modern  plays,  on  the 
other  hand,  Ibsen  opens  quietly  enough,  though 
usually  with  some  more  or  less  arresting  little 
incident,  calculated  to  arouse  immediate  curiosity. 
One  may  cite  as  characteristic  examples  the  hur- 
ried colloquy  between  Engstrand  and  Regina  in 
Ghosts;  Rebecca  and  Madam  Helseth  in  Rosmers- 
holm,  watching  to  see  whether  Rosmer  will  cross 
the  mill-race;  and  in  The  Master  Builder,  old 
Brovik's  querulous  outburst,  immediately  followed 
by  the  entrance  of  Solness  and  his  mysterious  be- 
haviour towards  Kaia.  The  opening  of  Hedda 
Gabler,  with  its  long  conversation  between  Miss 
Tesman  and  the  servant  Bertha,  comes  as  near  as 
Ibsen  ever  did  to  the  conventional  exposition  of 
the  French  stage,  conducted  by  a  footman  and  a 
parlour-maid  engaged  in  dusting  the  furniture.  On 
the  other  hand,  there  never  was  a  more  masterly 
opening,  in  its  sheer  simplicity,  than  Nora's  en- 
trance in  A  Doll's  House,  and  the  little  silent  scene 
that  precedes  the  appearance  of  Helmer. 

Regarding  The  Vikings  as  Ibsen's  first  mature 


THE   POINT   OF   ATTACK         101 

production,  and  surveying  the  whole  series  of  his 
subsequent  works  in  which  he  had  stage  presenta- 
tion directly  in  view,1  we  find  that  in  only  two  out 
of  the  fifteen  plays  does  the  whole  action  come 
within  the  frame  of  the  picture.  These  two  are 
The  League  of  Youth  and  An  Enemy  of  the 
People.  In  neither  of  these  have  any  antecedents 
to  be  stated ;  neither  turns  upon  any  disclosure  of 
bygone  events  or  emotions.  We  are,  indeed,  af- 
forded brief  glimpses  into  the  past  both  of  Stens- 
gaard  and  of  Stockmann;  but  the  glimpses  are 
incidental  and  inessential.  It  is  certainly  no  mere 
coincidence  that  if  one  were  asked  to  pick  out 
the  pieces  of  thinnest  texture  in  all  Ibsen's  mature 
work,  one  would  certainly  select  these  two  plays. 
Far  be  it  from  me  to  disparage  An  Enemy  of  the 
People;  as  a  work  of  art  it  is  incomparably  greater 
than  such  a  piece  as  Pillars  of  Society;  but  it  is 
not  so  richly  woven,  not,  as  it  were,  so  deep  in 
pile.  Written  in  half  the  time  Ibsen  usually  de- 
voted to  a  play,  it  is  an  outburst  of  humorous 
indignation,  a  jeu  d' esprit,  one  might  almost  say, 
though  the  jeu  of  a  giant  esprit.  Observing  the 
effect  of  comparative  tenuity  in  these  two  plays, 
we  cannot  but  surmise  that  the  secret  of  the  depth 
and  richness  of  texture  so  characteristic  of  Ibsen's 
work,  lay  in  his  art  of  closely  interweaving  a  drama 
of  the  present  with  a  drama  of  the  past.  An 
Enemy  of  the  People  is  a  straightforward,  spirited 

1  This  excludes  Love's  Comedy,  Brand,  Peer  Gynt,  and 

Emperor  and  Galilean. 


102  PLAY-MAKING 

melody;    The  Wild  Duck  and  Rosmersholm  are 
subtly  and  intricately  harmonized. 

Going  a  little  more  into  detail,  we  find  in  Ibsen's 
work  an  extraordinary  progress  in  the  art  of  so 
unfolding  the  drama  of  the  past  as  to  make  the 
gradual  revelation  no  mere  preface  or  prologue 
to  the  drama  of  the  present,  but  an  integral  part 
of  its  action.  It  is  true  that  in  The  Vikings  he 
already  showed  himself  a  master  in  this  art.  The 
great  revelation  —  the  disclosure  of  the  fact  that 
Sigurd,  not  Gunnar,  did  the  deed  of  prowess  which 
Hiordis  demanded  of  the  man  who  should  be  her 
mate  —  this  crucial  revelation  is  brought  about  in 
a  scene  of  the  utmost  dramatic  intensity.  The 
whole  drama  of  the  past,  indeed  —  both  its  facts 
and  its  emotions  —  may  be  said  to  be  dragged  to 
light  in  the  very  stress  and  pressure  of  the  drama 
of  the  present.  Not  a  single  detail  of  it  is  nar- 
rated in  cold  blood,  as,  for  example,  Prospero 
relates  to  Miranda  the  story  of  their  marooning,  or 
Horatio  expounds  the  Norwegian-Danish  political 
situation.  I  am  not  holding  up  The  Vikings  as  a 
great  masterpiece;  it  has  many  weaknesses  both 
of  substance  and  of  method ;  but  in  this  particular 
art  of  indistinguishably  blending  the  drama  of  the 
present  with  the  drama  of  the  past,  it  is  already 
consummate.  The  Pretenders  scarcely  comes  into 
the  comparison.  It  is  Ibsen's  one  chronicle-play; 
and,  like  Shakespeare,  he  did  not  shrink  from  em- 
ploying a  good  deal  of  narrative,  though  his  narra- 
tives, it  must  be  said,  are  always  introduced  under 


THE    POINT    OF   ATTACK         103 

such  circumstances  as  to  make  them  a  vital  part 
of  the  drama.  It  is  when  we  come  to  the  modern 
plays  that  we  find  the  poet  falling  back  upon  con- 
ventional and  somewhat  clumsy  methods  of  expo- 
sition, which  he  only  by  degrees,  though  by  rapid 
degrees,  unlearns. 

The  League  of  Youth,  as  we  have  seen,  requires 
no  exposition.  All  we  have  to  learn  is  the  existing 
relations  of  the  characters,  which  appear  quite 
naturally  as  the  action  proceeds.  But  let  us  look 
at  Pillars  of  Society.  Here  we  have  to  be  placed 
in  possession  of  a  whole  antecedent  drama:  the 
intrigue  of  Karsten  Bernick  with  Dina  Dorf's 
mother,  the  threatened  scandal,  Johan  Tonnesen's 
vicarious  acceptance  of  Bernick's  responsibility, 
the  subsidiary  scandal  of  Lona  Hessel's  outburst 
on  learning  of  Bernick's  engagement  to  her  half- 
sister,  the  report  of  an  embezzlement  committed  by 
Johan  before  his  departure  for  America.  All  this 
has  to  be  conveyed  to  us  in  retrospect ;  or,  rather, 
in  the  first  place,  we  have  to  be  informed  of  the 
false  version  of  these  incidents  which  is  current  in 
the  little  town,  and  on  which  Bernick's  moral  and 
commercial  prestige  is  built  up.  What  device, 
then,  does  Ibsen  adopt  to  this  end  ?  He  introduces 
a  "  sewing-bee"  of  tattling  women,  one  of  whom 
happens  to  be  a  stranger  to  the  town,  and  unfa- 
miliar with  its  gossip.  Into  her  willing  ear  the 
others  pour  the  popular  version  of  the  Bernick 
story ;  and,  this  impartment  effected,  the  group  of 
gossips  disappears,  to  be  heard  of  no  more.  These 


104  PLAY-MAKING 

ladies  perform  the  function,  in  fact,  of  the  First, 
Second,  and  Third  Gentlemen,  so  common  in 
Elizabethan  and  pseudo-Elizabethan  plays.1  They 
are  not  quite  so  artless  in  their  conventionality,  for 
they  bring  with  them  the  social  atmosphere  of  the 
tattling  little  town,  which  is  an  essential  factor 
in  the  drama.  Moreover,  their  exposition  is  not 
a  simple  narrative  of  facts.  It  is  to  some  extent 
subtilized  by  the  circumstance  that  the  facts  are  not 
facts,  and  that  the  gist  of  the  drama  is  to  lie  in 
the  gradual  triumph  of  the  truth  over  this  tissue  of 
falsehoods.  Still,  explain  it  as  we  may,  the  fact 
remains  that  in  no  later  play  does  Ibsen  initiate  us 
into  the  preliminaries  of  his  action  by  so  hackneyed 
and  unwieldy  a  device.  It  is  no  conventional  canon, 
but  a  maxim  of  mere  common  sense,  that  the 
dramatist  should  be  chary  of  introducing  char- 
acters who  have  no  personal  share  in  the  drama, 
and  are  mere  mouthpieces  for  the  conveyance  of 
information.  Nowhere  else  does  Ibsen  so  fla- 
grantly disregard  so  obvious  a  principle  of  dramatic 
economy.2 

When  we  turn  to  his  next  play,  A  Doll's  House, 
we  find  that  he  has  already  made  a  great  step  in 

*  See,  for  example,  King  Henry  VIII.,  Act  IV.,  and  the 
opening  scene  of  Tennyson's  Queen  Mary. 

1  This  rule  of  economy  does  not  necessarily  exclude  a 
group  of  characters  performing  something  like  the  function 
of  the  antique  Chorus ;  that  is  to  say,  commenting  upon  the 
action  from  a  more  or  less  disinterested  point  of  view.  The 
function  of  Kaffee-Klatsch  in  Pillars  of  Society  is  not  at  all 
that  of  the  Chorus,  but  rather  that  of  the  Euripidean  Pro- 
logue, somewhat  thinly  disguised 


THE    POINT    OF    ATTACK          105 

advance.  He  has  progressed  from  the  First,  Sec- 
ond, and  Third  Gentlemen  of  the  Elizabethans  to 
the  confidant1  of  the  French  classic  drama.  He 
even  attempts,  not  very  successfully,  to  disguise 
the  confidant  by  giving  her  a  personal  interest,  an 
effective  share,  in  the  drama.  Nothing  can  really 
dissemble  the  fact  that  the  long  scene  between 
Nora  and  Mrs.  Linden,  which  occupies  almost  one- 
third  of  the  first  act,  is  simply  a  formal  exposition, 
outside  the  action  of  the  play.  Just  as  it  was  provi- 
dential that  one  of  the  housewives  of  the  sewing- 
bee  in  Pillars  of  Society  should  have  been  a 
stranger  to  the  town,  so  was  it  the  luckiest  of 
chances  (for  the  dramatist's  convenience)  that  an 
old  school-friend  should  have  dropped  in  from 
the  clouds  precisely  half-an-hour  before  the  en- 
trance of  Krogstad  brings  to  a  sudden  head  the 
great  crisis  of  Nora's  life.  This  happy  conjuncture 
of  events  is  manifestly  artificial:  a  trick  of  the 
dramatist's  trade:  a  point  at  which  his  art  does 
not  conceal  his  art.  Mrs.  Linden  does  not,  like 
the  dames  of  the  sewing-bee,  fade  out  of  the 
saga ;  she  even,  through  her  influence  on  Krogstad, 
plays  a  determining  part  in  the  development  of 
the  action.  But  to  all  intents  and  purposes  she 

1  It  is  perhaps  worth  noting  that  Gabriele  d'Annunzio  in 
La  Gioconda,  reverts  to,  and  outdoes,  the  French  classic 
convention,  by  giving  us  three  actors  and  four  confidants. 
The  play  consists  of  a  crisis  in  three  lives,  passively,  though 
sympathetically,  contemplated  by  what  is  in  effect  a  Chorus 
of  two  men  and  two  women.  It  would  be  interesting  to  in- 
quire why,  in  this  particular  play,  such  an  abuse  of  the  con- 
fidant seems  quite  admissible,  if  not  conspicuously  right. 


io6  PLAY-MAKING 

remains  a  mere  confidant,  a  pretext  for  Nora's  re- 
view of  the  history  of  her  married  life.  There  are 
two  other  specimens  of  the  genus  confidant  in 
Ibsen's  later  plays.  Arnholm,  in  The  Lady  from 
the  Sea,  is  little  more ;  Dr.  Herdal,  in  The  Master 
Builder,  is  that  and  nothing  else.  It  may  be 
alleged  in  his  defence  that  the  family  physician  is 
the  professional  confidant  of  real  life. 

In  Ghosts,  Ibsen  makes  a  sudden  leap  to  the 
extreme  of  his  retrospective  method.  I  am  not 
one  of  those  who  consider  this  play  Ibsen's  master- 
piece: I  do  not  even  place  it,  technically,  in  the 
first  rank  among  his  works.  And  why?  Because 
there  is  here  no  reasonable  equilibrium  between 
the  drama  of  the  past  and  the  drama  of  the  pres* 
ent.  The  drama  of  the  past  is  almost  everything, 
the  drama  of  the  present  next  to  nothing.  As  soon 
as  we  have  probed  to  the  depths  the  Alving  mar- 
riage and  its  consequences,  the  play  is  over,  and 
there  is  nothing  left  but  for  Regina  to  set  off  in 
pursuit  of  the  joy  of  life,  and  for  Oswald  to 
collapse  into  imbecility.  It  is  scarcely  an  exagger- 
ation to  call  the  play  all  exposition  and  no  drama. 
Here  for  the  first  time,  however,  Ibsen  perfected 
his  peculiar  gift  of  imparting  tense  dramatic  in- 
terest to  the  unveiling  of  the  past.  While  in  one 
sense  the  play  is  all  exposition,  in  another  sense 
it  may  quite  as  truly  be  said  to  contain  no  expo- 
sition; for  it  contains  no  narrative  delivered  in 
cold  blood,  in  mere  calm  retrospection,  as  a  neces- 
sary preliminary  to  the  drama  which  is  in  the  mean- 


THE    POINT    OF   ATTACK         107 

time  waiting  at  the  door.  In  other  words,  the 
exposition  is  all  drama,  it  is  the  drama.  The  per- 
sons who  are  tearing  the  veils  from  the  past,  and 
for  whom  the  veils  are  being  torn,  are  intensely 
concerned  in  the  process,  which  actually  constitutes 
the  dramatic  crisis.  The  discovery  of  this  method, 
or  its  rediscovery  in  modern  drama,1  was  Ibsen's 
great  technical  achievement.  In  his  best  work, 
the  progress  of  the  unveiling  occasions  a  marked 
development,  or  series  of  changes,  in  the  actual 
and  present  relations  of  the  characters.  The  drama 
of  the  past  and  the  drama  of  the  present  proceed, 
so  to  speak,  in  interlacing  rhythms,  or,  as  I  said 
before,  in  a  rich,  complex  harmony.  In  Ghosts 
this  harmony  is  not  so  rich  as  in  some  later  plays, 
because  the  drama  of  the  present  is  dispropor- 
tionately meagre.  None  the  less,  or  all  the  more, 
is  it  a  conspicuous  example  of  Ibsen's  method 
of  raising  his  curtain,  not  at  the  beginning 
of  the  crisis,  but  rather  at  the  beginning  of 
the  catastrophe. 

In  An  Enemy  of  the  People,  as  already  stated, 
he  momentarily  deserted  that  method,  and  gave  us 
an  action  which  begins,  develops,  and  ends  entirely 

1  Dryden,  in  his  Essay  of  Dramatic  Poesy,  represents 
this  method  as  being  characteristic  of  Greek  tragedy  as  a 
whole.  The  tragic  poets,  he  says,  "  set  the  audience,  as  it 
were,  at  the  post  where  the  race  is  to  be  concluded;  and, 
saving  them  the  tedious  expectation  of  seeing  the  poet  set 
out  and  ride  the  beginning  of  the  course,  they  suffer  you 
not  to  behold  him,  till  he  is  in  sight  of  the  goal  and  just 
upon  you."  Dryden  seems  to  think  that  the  method  was 
forced  upon  them  by  "  the  rule  of  time." 


io8  PLAY-MAKING 

within  the  frame  of  the  picture.  But  in  the  two 
following  plays,  The  Wild  Duck  and  Rosmersholm, 
he  touched  the  highest  point  of  technical  mastery 
in  his  interweaving  of  the  past  with  the  present. 
I  shall  not  attenpt  any  analysis  of  the  fabric  of 
these  plays.  The  process  would  be  long,  tedious, 
and  unhelpful ;  for  no  one  could  hope  to  employ 
a  method  of  such  complexity  without  something 
of  Ibsen's  genius;  and  genius  will  evolve  its 
methods  for  itself.  Let  me  only  ask  the  reader 
to  compare  the  scene  between  old  Werle  and 
Gregers  in  the  first  act  of  The  Wild  Duck  with 
the  scene  between  Nora  and  Mrs.  Linden  in  the 
first  act  of  A  Doll's  House,  and  mark  the  technical 
advance.  Both  scenes  are,  in  a  sense,  scenes  of 
exposition.  Both  are  mainly  designed  to  place 
us  in  possession  of  a  sequence  of  bygone  facts. 
But  while  the  Doll's  House  scene  is  a  piece  of 
quiet  gossip,  brought  about  (as  we  have  noted) 
by  rather  artificial  means,  and  with  no  dramatic 
tension  in  it,  the  Wild  Duck  scene  is  a  piece  of 
tense,  one  might  almost  say  fierce,  drama,  fulfilling 
the  Brunetiere  definition  in  that  it  shows  us  two 
characters,  a  father  and  son,  at  open  war  with 
each  other.  The  one  scene  is  outside  the  real 
action,  the  other  is  an  integral  part  of  it.  The 
one  belongs  to  Ibsen's  tentative  period,  the  other 
ushers  in,  one  might  almost  say,  his  period  of 
consummate  mastery.1 

1  It  is  a  rash   enterprise  to  reconstruct  Ibsen,  but  one 
cannot  help  wondering  how  he  would  have  planned  A  Doll's 


THE    POINT    OF    ATTACK          109 

Rosmersholm  is  so  obviously  nothing  but  the 
catr strophe  of  an  antecedent  drama  that  an  attempt 
has  actually  been  made  to  rectify  Ibsen's  supposed 
mistake,  and  to  write  the  tragedy  of  the  deceased 
Beata.  It  was  made  by  an  unskilful  hand;  but 
even  a  skilful  hand  would  scarcely  have  done  more 
than  prove  how  rightly  Ibsen  judged  that  the  re- 
coil of  Rebecca's  crime  upon  herself  and  Rosmer 
would  prove  more  interesting,  and  in  a  very  real 
sense  more  dramatic,  than  the  somewhat  vulgar 
process  of  the  crime  itself.  The  play  is  not  so 
profound  in  its  humanity  as  The  Wild  Duck,  but 
it  is  Ibsen's  masterpiece  in  the  art  of  withdrawing 
veil  after  veil.  From  the  technical  point  of  view, 
it  will  repay  the  closest  study. 

We  need  not  look  closely  at  the  remaining  plays. 
Hedda  Gabler  is  perhaps  that  in  which  a  sound 
proportion  between  the  past  and  the  present  is 
most  successfully  preserved.  The  interest  of  the 
present  action  is  throughout  very  vivid;  but  it  is 
all  rooted  in  facts  and  relations  of  the  past,  which 
are  elicited  under  circumstances  of  high  dramatic 

House  had  he  written  it  in  the  'eighties  instead  of  the 
'seventies.  One  can  imagine  a  long  opening  scene  between 
Helmer  and  Nora  in  which  a  great  deal  of  the  necessary 
information  might  have  been  conveyed;  while  it  would  have 
heightened  by  contrast  the  effect  of  the  great  final  duologue 
as  we  now  possess  it.  Such  information  as  could  not  pos- 
sibly have  been  conveyed  in  dialogue  with  Helmer  might, 
one  would  think,  have  been  left  for  Nora's  first  scene  with 
Krogstad,  the  effect  of  which  it  would  have  enhanced.  Per- 
haps Mrs.  Linden  might  with  advantage  have  been  re- 
tained, though  not  in  her  present  character  of  confidant,  in 
order  to  show  Nora  in  relation  to  another  woman. 


I  io  PLAY-MAKING 

tension.  Here  again  it  is  instructive  to  compare 
the  scene  between  Hedda  and  Thea,  in  the  first 
act,  with  the  scene  between  Nora  and  Mrs.  Linden. 
Both  are  scenes  of  exposition:  and  each  is,  in  its 
way,  character-revealing;  but  the  earlier  scene  is 
a  passage  of  quite  unemotional  narrative ;  the  later 
is  a  passage  of  palpitating  drama.  In  the  plays 
subsequent  to  Hedda  Gabler,  it  cannot  be  denied 
that  the  past  took  the  upper  hand  of  the  present 
to  a  degree  which  could  only  be  justified  by  the 
genius  of  an  Ibsen.  Three-fourths  of  the  action  of 
The  Master  Builder,  Little  Eyolf,  John  Gabriel 
Borkman,  and  When  We  Dead  Awaken,  consists 
of  what  may  be  called  ajpassionate  analysis  of  the 
past.  Ibsen  had  the  art  of  making  such  an  analysis 
absorbingly  interesting;  but  it  is  not  a  formula  to 
be  commended  for  the  practical  purposes  of  the 
everyday  stage. 


VII 

EXPOSITION:   ITS   END   AND   ITS   MEANS 

WE  have  passed  in  rapid  survey  the  practices 
of  Shakespeare  and  Ibsen  in  respect  of  their 
point  and  method  of  attack  upon  their  themes. 
What  practical  lessons  can  we  now  deduce  from 
this  examination? 

One  thing  is  clear:  namely,  that  there  is  no  in* 
herent  superiority  in  one  method  over  another. 
There  are  masterpieces  in  which  the  whole  crisis 
falls  within  the  frame  of  the  picture,  and  master- 
pieces in  which  the  greater  part  of  the  crisis  has 
to  be  conveyed  to  us  in  retrospect,  only  the  catas- 
trophe being  transacted  before  our  eyes.  Genius 
can  manifest  itself  equally  in  either  form. 

But  each  form  has  its  peculiar  advantages.  You 
cannot,  in  a  retrospective  play  like  Rosmersholm, 
attain  anything  like  the  magnificent  onward  rush 
of  Othello,  which  moves  — 

"  Like  to  the  Pontick  sea 
Whose  icy  current  and  compulsive  course 
Ne'er  feels  retiring  ebb,  but  keeps  due  on 
To  the  Propontick  and  the  Hellespont." 

The  movement  of  Rosmersholm  is  rather  like  that 
of  a  winding  river,  which  flows  with  a  full  and 
steady  current,  but  seems  sometimes  to  be  almost 

in 


112  PLAY-MAKING 

retracing  its  course.  If,  then,  you  aim  at  rapidity 
of  movement,  you  will  choose  a  theme  which  leaves 
little  or  nothing  to  retrospect;  and  conversely,  if 
you  have  a  theme  the  whole  of  which  falls  easily 
and  conveniently  within  the  frame  of  the  picture, 
you  will  probably  take  advantage  of  the  fact  to 
give  your  play  animated  and  rapid  movement. 
t  There  is  an  undeniable  attraction  in  a  play  which 
constitutes,  so  to  speak,  one  brisk  and  continuous 
adventure,  begun,  developed,  and  ended  before  our 
eyes.  For  light  comedy  in  particular  is  this  a 
desirable  form,  and  for  romantic  plays  in  which 
no  very  searching  character-study  is  attempted. 
The  Taming  of  the  Shrew  no  doubt  passed  for  a 
light  comedy  in  Shakespeare's  day,  though  we  de- 
scribe it  by  a  briefer  name.  Its  rapid,  bustling 
action  is  possible  because  we  are  always  ready  to 
take  the  character  of  a  shrew  for  granted.  It 
would  have  been  a  very  different  play  had  the  poet 
required  to  account  for  Katharine's  peculiarities  of 
temper  by  a  retrospective  study  of  her  heredity 
and  up-bringing.  Many  eighteenth-century  come- 
dies are  single-adventure  plays,  or  dual-adventure 
plays,  in  the  sense  that  the  main  action  sometimes 
stands  aside  to  let  an  underplot  take  the  stage. 
Both  She  Stoops  to  Conquer  and  The  Rivals  are 
good  examples  of  the  rapid  working-out  of  an 
intrigue,  engendered,  developed,  and  resolved  all 
within  the  frame  of  the  picture.  Single-adventure 
plays  of  a  more  modern  type  are  the  elder  Dumas's 
Mademoiselle  de  Belle-Isle,  the  younger  Dumas's 


EXPOSITION  113 

Francillon,  Sardou's  Divorgons,  Sir  Arthur 
Pinero's  Gay  Lord  Quex,  Mr.  Shaw's  Devil's 
Disciple,  Oscar  Wilde's  Importance  of  Being 
Earnest,  Mr.  Galsworthy's  Silver  Box.  Widely 
as  these  plays  differ  in  type  and  tone,  they  are 
alike  in  this,  that  they  do  not  attempt  to  present 
very  complex  character-studies,  or  to  probe  the 
deeps  of  human  experience.  The  last  play  cited, 
The  Silver  Box,  may  perhaps  be  thought  an  ex- 
ception to  this  rule;  but,  though  the  experience  of 
the  hapless  charwoman  is  pitiful  enough,  hers  is 
a  simple  soul,  so  inured  to  suffering  that  a  little 
more  or  less  is  no  such  great  matter.  The  play  is 
an  admirable  genre-picture  rather  than  a  searching 
tragedy. 

The  point  to  be  observed  is  that,  under  modern 
conditions,  it  is  difficult  to  produce  a  play  of 
very  complex  psychological,  moral,  or  emotional 
substance,  in  which  the  whole  crisis  comes  within 
the  frame  of  the  picture.  The  method  of  attacking 
the  crisis  in  the  middle  or  towards  the  end  is  really 
a  device  for  relaxing,  in  some  measure,  the  narrow 
bounds  of  theatrical  representation,  and  enabling 
the  playwright  to  deal  with  a  larger  segment  of 
human  experience.  It  may  be  asked  why  modern 
conditions  should  in  this  respect  differ  from  Eliza- 
bethan conditions,  and  why,  if  Shakespeare  could 
produce  such  profound  and  complex  tragedies  as 
Othello  and  King  Lear  without  a  word  of  expo- 
sition or  retrospect,  the  modern  dramatist  should 
not  go  and  do  likewise  ?  The  answer  to  this  ques- 


ii4  PLAY-MAKING 

tion  is  not  simply  that  the  modern  dramatist  is 
seldom  a  Shakespeare.  That  is  true,  but  we  must 
look  deeper  than  that.  There  are,  in  fact,  several 
points  to  be  taken  into  consideration.  For  one 
thing  —  this  is  a  minor  point  —  Shakespeare  had 
really  far  more  elbow-room  than  the  playwright  of 
to-day.  Othello  and  King  Lear,  to  say  nothing  of 
Hamlet,  are  exceedingly  long  plays.  Something 
like  a  third  of  them  is  omitted  in  modern  repre- 
sentation; and  when  we  speak  of  their  richness 
and  complexity  of  characterization,  we  do  not 
think  simply  of  the  plays  as  we  see  them  com- 
pressed into  acting  limits,  but  of  the  plays  as  we 
know  them  in  the  study.  It  is  possible,  no  doubt, 
for  modern  playwrights  to  let  themselves  go  in 
the  matter  of  length,  and  then  print  their  plays 
with  brackets  or  other  marks  to  show  the  "  pas- 
sages omitted  in  representation."  This  is,  how- 
ever, essentially  an  inartistic  practice,  and  one  can- 
not regret  that  it  has  gone  out  of  fashion.  An- 
other point  to  be  considered  is  this:  are  Othello 
and  Lear  really  very  complex  character-studies? 
They  are  extremely  vivid :  they  are  projected  with 
enormous  energy,  in  actions  whose  violence  affords 
scope  for  the  most  vehement  self-expression;  but 
are  they  not,  in  reality,  colossally  simple  rather 
than  complex?  It  is  true  that  in  Lear  the  phe- 
nomena of  insanity  are  reproduced  with  astonish- 
ing minuteness  and  truth ;  but  this  does  not  imply 
any  elaborate  analysis  or  demand  any  great  space. 
Hamlet  is  complex ;  and  were  I  "  talking  for  vie- 


EXPOSITION  115 

tory,"  I  should  point  out  that  Hamlet  is,  of  all  the 
tragedies,  precisely  the  one  which  does  not  come 
within  the  frame  of  the  picture.  But  the  true 
secret  of  the  matter  does  not  lie  here:  it  lies  in 
the  fact  that  Hamlet  unpacks  his  heart  to  us  in  a 
series  of  soliloquies  —  a  device  employed  scarcely 
at  all  in  the  portrayal  of  Othello  and  Lear,  and 
denied  to  the  modern  dramatist.1  Yet  again,  the 
social  position  and  environment  of  the  great 
Shakespearean  characters  is  taken  for  granted. 
No  time  is  spent  in  "  placing  "  them  in  a  given 
stratum  of  society,  or  in  establishing  their  heredity, 
traditions,  education,  and  so  forth.  And,  finally, 
the  very  copiousness  of  expression  permitted  by 
the  rhetorical  Elizabethan  form  came  to  Shake- 
speare's aid.  The  modern  dramatist  is  hampered 
by  all  sorts  of  reticences.  He  has  often  to  work 
rather  in  indirect  suggestion  than  in  direct  expres- 
sion. He  has,  in  short,  to  submit  to  a  hundred 
hampering  conditions  from  which  Shakespeare  was 
exempt;  wherefore,  even  if  he  had  Shakespeare's 
genius,  he  would  find  it  difficult  to  produce  a  very 
profound  effect  in  a  crisis  worked  out  from  first  to 
last  before  the  eyes  of  the  audience. 

Nevertheless,  as  before  stated,  such  a  crisis  has 
a  charm  of  its  own.  There  is  a  peculiar  interest 
in  watching  the  rise  and  development  out  of  noth- 
ing, as  it  were,  of  a  dramatic  complication.  For 
this  class  of  play  (despite  the  Shakespearean  prece- 
dents) a  quiet  opening  is  often  advisable,  rather 
1  See  Chapter  XXIII. 


ii6  PLAY-MAKING 

than  a  strong  einleitende  Akkord.  "  From  calm, 
through  storm,  to  calm,"  is  its  characteristic  for- 
mula ;  whether  the  concluding  calm  be  one  of  life 
and  serenity  or  of  despair  and  death.  To  my  per- 
sonal taste,  one  of  the  keenest  forms  of  theatrical 
enjoyment  is  that  of  seeing  the  curtain  go  up  on 
a  picture  of  perfect  tranquillity,  wondering  from 
what  quarter  the  drama  ?s  going  to  arise,  and  then 
watching  it  gather  on  the  horizon  like  a  cloud  no 
bigger  than  a  man's  hand.  Of  this  type  of  open- 
ing, An  Enemy  of  the  People  provides  us  with  a 
classic  example ;  and  among  English  plays  we  may 
cite  Mr.  Shaw's  Candida,  Mr.  Barker's  Waste,  and 
Mr.  Besier's  Don,  in  which  so  sudden  and  un- 
looked-for a  cyclone  swoops  down  upon  the  calm 
of  an  English  vicarage.  An  admirable  instance 
of  a  fantastic  type  may  be  found  in  Prunella,  by 
Messrs.  Barker  and  Housman.1 

There  is  much  to  be  said,  however,  in  favour  of 
the  opening  which  does  not  present  an  aspect  of 
delusive  calm,  but  shows  the  atmosphere  already 
charged  with  electricity.  Compare,  for  instance, 
the  opening  of  The  Case  of  Rebellious  Susan,  by 
Mr.  Henry  Arthur  Jones,  with  that  of  a  French 

1  Henri  Bccque's  two  best-known  plays  aptly  exemplify 
the  two  types  of  opening.  In  Les  Corbeaux  we  have  almost 
an  entire  act  of  calm  domesticity  in  which  the  only  hint  of 
coming  trouble  is  an  allusion  to  Vigneron's  attacks  of  ver- 
tigo. In  La  Parisienne  Clotilde  and  Lafont  are  in  the  thick 
of  a  vehement  quarrel  over  a  letter.  It  proceeds  for  ten 
minutes  or  so,  at  the  end  of  which  Clotilde  says,  "  Prenez 
garde,  voila  mon  mari  1 "  —  and  we  find  that  the  two  are 
not  husband  and  wife,  but  wife  and  lover. 


EXPOSITION  117 

play  of  very  similar  theme  —  Dumas's  Francillon. 
In  the  latter,  we  see  the  storm-cloud  slowly  gather- 
ing up  on  the  horizon ;  in  the  former,  it  is  already 
on  the  point  of  breaking,  right  overhead.  Mr. 
Jones  places  us  at  the  beginning,  where  Dumas 
leaves  us  at  the  end,  of  his  first  act.  It  is  true  that 
at  the  end  of  Mr.  Jones's  act  he  has  not  advanced 
any  further  than  Dumas.  The  French  author  shows 
his  heroine  gradually  working  up  to  a  nervous 
crisis,  the  English  author  introduces  his  heroine 
already  at  the  height  of  her  paroxysm,  and  the 
act  consists  of  the  unavailing  efforts  of  her  friends 
to  smooth  her  down.  The  upshot  is  the  same; 
but  in  Mr.  Jones's  act  we  are,  as  the  French  say, 
"  in  full  drama  "  all  the  time,  while  in  Dumas's 
v/e  await  the  coming  of  the  drama,  and  only  by 
exerting  all  his  wit,  not  to  say  over-exerting  it, 
does  he  prevent  our  feeling  impatient.  I  am  not 
claiming  superiority  for  either  method;  I  merely 
point  to  a  good  example  of  two  different  ways 
of  attacking  the  same  problem. 

In  The  Benefit  of  the  Doubt,  by  Sir  Arthur 
Pinero,  we  have  a  crisply  dramatic  opening  of  the 
very  best  type.  A  few  words  from  a  contemporary 
criticism  may  serve  to  indicate  the  effect  it  pro- 
duced on  a  first-night  audience  — 

We  are  in  the  thick  of  the  action  at  once,  or  at 
least  in  the  thick  of  the  interest,  so  that  the  exposi- 
tion, instead  of  being,  so  to  speak,  a  mere  platform 
from  which  the  train  is  presently  to  start,  becomes 
an  inseparable  part  of  the  movement.  The  sense  of 


ii8  PLAY-MAKING 

dramatic  irony  is  strongly  and  yet  delicately  sug- 
gested. We  foresee  a  "  peripety,"  apparent  pros- 
perity suddenly  crumbling  into  disaster,  within  the 
act  itself;  and,  when  it  comes,  it  awakens  our  sym- 
pathy and  redoubles  our  interest. 

Almost  the  same  words  might  be  applied  to 
the  opening  of  The  Climbers,  by  the  late  Clyde 
Fitch,  one  of  the  many  individual  scenes  which 
make  one  deeply  regret  that  Mr.  Fitch  did  not  live 
to  do  full  justice  to  his  remarkable  talent. 

One  of  the  ablest  of  recent  openings  is  that  of 
Mr.  Galsworthy's  Silver  Box.  The  curtain  rises 
upon  a  solid,  dull,  upper-middle-class  dining-room, 
empty  and  silent,  the  electric  lights  burning,  the 
tray  with  whiskey,  syphon  and  cigarette-box  mark- 
ing the  midnight  hour.  Then  we  have  the  stum- 
bling, fumbling  entrance  of  Jack  Barthwick,  bea- 
tifically  drunk,  his  maudlin  babble,  and  his  ill- 
omened  hospitality  to  the  haggard  loafer  who 
follows  at  his  heels.  Another  example  of  a  high- 
pitched  opening  scene  may  be  found  in  Mr.  Per- 
ceval Landon's  The  House  Opposite.  Here  we 
have  a  midnight  parting  between  a  married  woman 
and  her  lover,  in  the  middle  of  which  the  man, 
glancing  at  the  lighted  window  of  the  house  oppo- 
site, sees  a  figure  moving  in  such  a  way  as  to 
suggest  that  a  crime  is  being  perpetrated.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  an  old  man  is  murdered,  and  his 
housekeeper  is  accused  of  the  crime.  The  hero, 
if  so  he  can  be  called,  knows  that  it  was  a  man, 


EXPOSITION  119 

not  a  woman,  who  was  in  the  victim's  room  that 
night ;  and  the  problem  is :  how  can  he  give  his 
evidence  without  betraying  a  woman's  secret  by 
admitting  his  presence  in  her  house  at  midnight? 
I  neither  praise  nor  blame  this  class  of  story;  I 
merely  cite  the  play  as  one  in  which  we  plunge 
straight  into  the  crisis,  without  any  introductory 
period  of  tranquillity. 

The  interest  of  Mr.  Landon's  play  lay  almost 
wholly  in  the  story.  There  was  just  enough  char- 
acter in  it  to  keep  the  story  going,  so  to  speak. 
The  author  might,  on  the  other  hand,  have  concen- 
trated our  attention  on  character,  and  made  his 
play  a  soul-tragedy;  but  in  that  case  it  would 
doubtless  have  been  necessary  to  take  us  some  way 
backward  in  the  heroine's  antecedents  and  the  his- 
tory of  her  marriage.  In  other  words,  if  the  play 
had  gone  deeper  into  human  nature,  the  prelimi- 
naries of  the  crisis  would  have  had  to  be  traced 
in  some  detail,  possibly  in  a  first  act,  introductory 
to  the  actual  opening,  but  more  probably,  and 
better,  in  an  exposition  following  the  crisply 
touched  einleitende  Akkord.  This  brings  us  to  the 
question  how  an  exposition  may  best  be  managed. 

It  may  not  unreasonably  be  contended,  I  think, 
that,  when  an  exposition  cannot  be  thoroughly 
dramatized  —  that  is,  wrung  out,  in  the  stress 
of  the  action,  from  the  characters  primarily  con- 
cerned —  if  may  best  be  dismissed,  rapidly  and 
even  conventionally,  by  any  not  too  improbable 
device.  That  is  the  principle  on  which  Sir  Arthur 


120  PLAY-MAKING 

Pinero  has  always  proceeded,  and  for  which  he 
has  been  unduly  censured,  by  critics  who  make  no 
allowances  for  the  narrow  limits  imposed  by  cus- 
tom and  the  constitution  of  the  modern  audience 
upon  the  playwrights  of  to-day.  In  His  House  in 
Order  (one  of  his  greatest  plays)  Sir  Arthur 
effects  part  of  his  exposition  by  the  simple  device 
of  making  Hilary  Jesson  a  candidate  for  Parlia- 
ment, and  bringing  on  a  reporter  to  interview  his 
private  secretary.  The  incident  is  perfectly  natural 
and  probable;  all  one  can  say  of  it  is  that  it  is 
perhaps  an  over-simplification  of  the  dramatist's 
task.1  The  Second  Mrs.  Tanqueray  requires  an 
unusual  amount  of  preliminary  retrospect.  We 
have  to  learn  the  history  of  Aubrey  Tanqueray's 
first  marriage,  with  the  mother  of  Ellean,  as  well 
as  the  history  of  Paula  Ray's  past  life.  The 
mechanism  employed  to  this  end  has  been  much 
criticized,  but  seems  to  me  admirable.  Aubrey 
gives  a  farewell  dinner-party  to  his  intimate 
friends,  Misquith  and  Jayne.  Cayley  Drummle, 
too,  is  expected,  but  has  not  arrived  when  the 
play  opens.  Without  naming  the  lady,  Aubrey 
announces  to  his  guests  his  approaching  marriage. 
He  proposes  to  go  out  with  them,  and  has  one  or 


1  Mrs.  Craigie  ("  John  Oliver  Hobbes  ")  opened  her  very 
successful  play,  The  Ambassador,  with  a  scene  between 
Juliet  Desborough  and  her  sister  Alice,  a  nun,  who  appar- 
ently left  her  convent  specially  to  hear  her  sister's  confes- 
sion, and  then  returned  to  it  for  ever.  This  was  certainly 
not  an  economical  form  of  exposition,  but  it  was  not  un- 
suited  to  the  type  of  play. 


EXPOSITION  121 

two  notes  to  write  before  doing  so.  Moreover, 
he  is  not  sorry  to  give  them  an  opportunity  to 
talk  over  the  announcement  he  has  made;  so  he 
retires  to  a  side-table  in  the  same  room,  to  do  his 
writing.  Misquith  and  Jayne  exchange  a  few 
speeches  in  an  undertone,  and  then  Cayley  Drum- 
mle  comes  in,  bringing  the  story  of  George 
Orreyd's  marriage  to  the  unmentionable  Miss 
Hervey.  This  story  is  so  unpleasant  to  Tan- 
queray  that,  to  get  out  of  the  conversation,  he 
returns  to  his  writing;  but  still  he  cannot  help 
listening  to  Cayley's  comments  on  George  Orreyd's 
"disappearance";  and  at  last  the  situation  be- 
comes so  intolerable  to  him  that  he  purposely 
leaves  the  room,  bidding  the  other  two  "  Tell  Cay- 
ley  the  news."  The  technical  manipulation  of  all 
this  seems  to  me  above  reproach  —  dramatically 
effective  and  yet  life-like  in  every  detail.  If  one 
were  bound  to  raise  an  objection,  it  would  be  to 
the  coincidence  which  brings  to  Cayley's  knowl- 
edge, on  one  and  the  same  evening,  two  such  exactly 
similar  misalliances  in  his  own  circle  of  acquaint- 
ance. But  these  are  just  the  coincidences  that  do 
constantly  happen.  Every  one  knows  that  life  is 
full  of  them. 

The  exposition  might,  no  doubt,  have  been  more 
economically  effected.  Cayley  Drummle  might 
have  figured  as  sole  confidant  and  chorus ;  or  even 
he  might  have  been  dispensed  with,  and  all  that 
was  necessary  might  have  appeared  in  colloquies 
between  Aubrey  and  Paula  on  the  one  hand, 


122  PLAY-MAKING 

Aubrey  and  Ellean  on  the  other.  But  Cayley  as 
sole  confidant  —  the  "  Charles,  his  friend,"  of 
eighteenth-century  comedy  —  would  have  been 
more  plainly  conventional  than  Cayley  as  one  of 
a  trio  of  Aubrey's  old  cronies,  representing  the 
society  he  is  sacrificing  in  entering  upon  this  ex- 
perimental marriage;  and  to  have  conveyed  the 
necessary  information  without  any  confidant  or 
chorus  at  all  would  (one  fancies)  have  strained 
probability,  or,  still  worse,  impaired  consistency  of 
character.  Aubrey  could  not  naturally  discuss  his 
late  wife  either  with  her  successor  or  with  her 
daughter;  while,  as  for  Paula's  past,  all  he  wanted 
was  to  avert  his  eyes  from  it.  I  do  not  say  that 
these  difficulties  might  not  have  been  overcome; 
for,  in  the  vocabulary  of  the  truly  ingenious 
dramatist  there  is  no  such  word  as  impossible. 
But  I  do  suggest  that  the  result  would  scarcely 
have  been  worth  the  trouble,  and  that  it  is  hyper- 
criticism  which  objects  to  an  exposition  so  natural 
and  probable  as  that  of  The  Second  Mrs.  Tan- 
queray,  simply  on  the  ground  that  certain  char- 
acters are  introduced  for  the  purpose  of  conveying 
certain  information.  It  would  be  foolish  to  expect 
of  every  work  of  art  an  absolutely  austere  economy 
of  means. 

Sometimes,  however,  Sir  Arthur  Pinero  injudi- 
ciously emphasizes  the  artifices  employed  to  bring 
about  an  exposition.  In  The  Thunderbolt,  for 
instance,  in  order  that  the  Mortimores'  family  so- 
licitor may  without  reproach  ask  for  information 


EXPOSITION  123 

on  matters  with  which  a  family  solicitor  ought  to 
be  fully  conversant,  it  has  to  be  explained  that  the 
senior  partner  of  the  firm,  who  had  the  Mortimore 
business  specially  in  hand,  has  been  called  away 
to  London,  and  that  a  junior  partner  has  taken  his 
place.  Such  a  rubbing-in,  as  it  were,  of  an  obvious 
device  ought  at  all  hazards  to  be  avoided.  If 
the  information  cannot  be  otherwise  imparted  (as 
in  this  case  it  surely  could),  the  solicitor  had  better 
be  allowed  to  ask  one  or  two  improbable  questions 
—  it  is  the  lesser  evil  of  the  two. 

When  the  whole  of  a  given  subject  cannot  be 
got  within  the  limits  of  presentation,  is  there  any 
means  of  determining  how  much  should  be  left  for 
retrospect,  and  at  what  point  the  curtain  ought  to 
be  raised?  The  principle  would  seem  to  be  that 
slow  and  gradual  processes,  and  especially  separate 
lines  of  causation,  should  be  left  outside  the  frame 
of  the  picture,  and  that  the  curtain  should  be  raised 
at  the  point  where  separate  lines  have  converged, 
and  where  the  crisis  begins  to  move  towards  its 
solution  with  more  or  less  rapidity  and  continuity. 
The  ideas  of  rapidity  and  continuity  may  be  con- 
veniently summed  up  in  the  hackneyed  and  often 
misapplied  term,  unity  of  action.  Though  the 
unities  of  time  and  place  are  long  ago  exploded 
as  binding  principles  —  indeed,  they  never  had  any 
authority  in  English  drama  —  yet  it  is  true  that 
a  broken-backed  action,  whether  in  time  or  space, 
ought,  so  far  as  possible,  to  be  avoided.  An  action 
with  a  gap  of  twenty  years  in  it  may  be  all  very 


124  PLAY-MAKING 

well  in  melodrama  or  romance,  but  scarcely  in 
higher  and  more  serious  types  of  drama.1  Es- 
pecially is  it  to  be  desired  that  interest  should  be 
concentrated  on  one  set  of  characters,  and  should 
not  be  frittered  away  on  subsidiary  or  preliminary 
personages.  Take,  for  instance,  the  case  of  The 
Second  Mrs.  Tanqueray.  It  would  have  been 
theoretically  possible  for  Sir  Arthur  Pinero  to  have 
given  us  either  (or  both)  of  two  preliminary 
scenes:  he  might  have  shown  us  the  first  Mrs. 
Tanqueray  at  home,  and  at  the  same  time  have 
introduced  us  more  at  large  to  the  characters  of 
Aubrey  and  Ellean;  or  he  might  have  depicted 
for  us  one  of  the  previous  associations  of  Paula 
Ray  —  might  perhaps  have  let  us  see  her  "  keeping 
house  "  with  Hugh  Ardale.  But  either  of  these 
openings  would  have  been  disproportionate  and 
superfluous.  It  would  have  excited,  or  tried  to 
excite,  our  interest  in  something  that  was  not  the 
real  theme  of  the  play,  and  in  characters  which 
were  to  drop  out  before  the  real  theme  —  the 
Aubrey- Paula  marriage  —  was  reached.  There- 
fore the  author,  in  all  probability,  never  thought 
of  beginning  at  either  of  these  points.  He  passed 
instinctively  to  the  point  at  which  the  two  lines 
of  causation  converged,  and  from  which  the  action 
could  be  carried  continuously  forward  by  one 
set  of  characters.  He  knew  that  we  could  learn 

1  In  that  charming  comedy,  Rosemary,  by  Messrs.  Parker 
and  Carson,  there  is  a  gap  of  fifty  years  between  the  last 
act  and  its  predecessor;  but  the  so-called  last  act  is  only  an 
"  epi-monologue." 


EXPOSITION  125 

in  retrospect  all  that  it  was  necessary  for  us  to 
know  of  the  first  Mrs.  Tanqueray,  and  that  to 
introduce  her  in  the  flesh  would  be  merely  to  lead 
the  interest  of  the  audience  into  a  blind  alley,  and 
to  break  the  back  of  his  action.  Again,  in  His 
House  in  Order  it  may  seem  that  the  intrigue  be- 
tween Maurewarde  and  the  immaculate  Annabel, 
with  its  tragic  conclusion,  would  have  made  a  stir- 
ring introductory  act.  But  to  have  presented  such 
an  act  would  have  been  to  destroy  the  unity  of 
the  play,  which  centres  in  the  character  of  Nina. 
Annabel  is  "  another  story  " ;  and  to  have  told,  or 
rather  shown  us,  more  of  it  than  was  absolutely 
necessary,  would  have  been  to  distract  our  atten- 
tion from  the  real  theme  of  the  play,  while  at 
the  same  time  fatally  curtailing  the  ail-too  brief 
time  available  for  the  working-out  of  that  theme. 
There  are  cases,  no  doubt,  when  verbal  exposition 
may  advantageously  be  avoided  by  means  of  a 
dramatized  "  Prologue  "  —  a  single  act,  consti- 
tuting a  little  drama  in  itself,  and  generally  sep- 
arated by  a  considerable  space  of  time  from  the 
action  proper.  But  this  method  is  scarcely  to  be 
commended,  except,  as  aforesaid,  for  purposes  of 
melodrama  and  romance.  A  "  Prologue  "  is  for 
such  plays  as  The  Prisoner  of  Zenda  and  The  Only 
Way,  not  for  such  plays  as  His  House  in  Order. 

The  question  whether  a  legato  or  a  staccato 
opening  be  the  more  desirable  must  be  decided  in 
accordance  with  the  nature  and  opportunities  of 
each  theme.  The  only  rule  that  can  be  stated  is 


126  PLAY-MAKING 

that,  when  the  attention  of  the  audience  is  required 
for  an  exposition  of  any  length,  some  attempt 
ought  to  be  made  to  awaken  in  advance  their 
general  interest  in  the  theme  and  characters.  It  is 
dangerous  to  plunge  straight  into  narrative,  or 
unemotional  discussion,  without  having  first  made 
the  audience  actively  desire  the  information  to  be 
conveyed  to  them.  Especially  is  it  essential  that 
the  audience  should  know  clearly  who  are  the  sub- 
jects of  the  discussion  or  narrative  —  that  they 
should  not  be  mere  names  to  them.  It  is  a  grave 
flaw  in  the  construction  of  Mr.  Granville  Barker's 
otherwise  admirable  play  Waste,  that  it  should 
open  with  a  long  discussion,  by  people  whom  we 
scarcely  know,  of  other  people  whom  we  do  not 
know  at  all,  whose  names  we  may  or  may  not  have 
noted  on  the  playbill.  Trebell,  Lord  Charles 
Cantelupe,  and  Blackborough  ought  certainly  to 
have  been  presented  to  us  in  the  flesh,  however 
briefly  and  summarily,  before  we  were  asked  to 
interest  ourselves  in  their  characters  and  the  politi- 
cal situation  arising  from  them. 

There  is,  however,  one  limitation  to  this  prin- 
ciple. A  great  effect  is  sometimes  attained  by 
retarding  the  entrance  of  a  single  leading  figure 
for  a  whole  act,  or  even  two,  while  he  is  so  con- 
stantly talked  about  as  to  beget  in  the  audience  a 
vivid  desire  to  make  his  personal  acquaintance. 
Thus  Moliere's  Tartufe  does  not  come  on  the  stage 
until  the  third  act  of  the  comedy  which  bears  his 
name.  Ibsen's  John  Gabriel  Borkman  is  unseen 


EXPOSITION  127 

until  the  second  act,  though  (through  his  wife's 
ears)  we  have  already  heard  him  pacing  up  and 
down  his  room  like  a  wolf  in  his  cage.  Dubedat, 
in  The  Doctor's  Dilemma,  is  not  revealed  to  us  in 
the  flesh  until  the  second  act.  But  for  this  device 
to  be  successful,  it  is  essential  that  only  one  lead- 
ing character  1  should  remain  unseen,  on  whom  the 
attention  of  the  audience  may,  by  that  very  fact, 
be  riveted.  In  Waste,  for  instance,  all  would  have 
been  well  had  it  suited  Mr.  Barker's  purpose  to 
leave  Trebell  invisible  till  the  second  act,  while  all 
the  characters  in  the  first  act,  clearly  presented  to 
us,  canvassed  him  from  their  various  points  of 
view.  Keen  expectancy,  in  short,  is  the  most  de- 
sirable frame  of  mind  in  which  an  audience  can  be 
placed,  so  long  as  the  expectancy  be  not  ultimately 
disappointed.  But  there  is  no  less  desirable  men- 
tal attitude  than  that  of  straining  after  gleams  of 
guidance  in  an  expository  twilight. 

The  advantage  of  a  staccato  opening  —  or,  to 
vary  the  metaphor,  a  brisk,  highly-aerated  intro- 
ductory passage  —  is  clearly  exemplified  in  A 
Doll's  House.  It  would  have  been  quite  possible 
for  Ibsen  to  have  sent  up  his  curtain  upon  Nora 
and  Mrs.  Linden  seated  comfortably  before  the 
stove,  and  exchanging  confidences  as  to  their  re- 
spective careers.  Nothing  indispensable  would 
have  been  omitted;  but  how  languid  would  have 
been  the  interest  of  the  audience!  As  it  is,  a 

1  Or  at  most  two  closely  connected  characters :  for  in- 
stance, a  husband  and  wife. 


128  PLAY-MAKING 

brief,  bright  scene  has  already  introduced  us,  not 
only  to  Nora,  but  to  Helmer,  and  aroused  an  eager 
desire  for  further  insight  into  the  affairs  of  this  — 
to  all  appearance  —  radiantly  happy  household. 
Therefore,  we  settle  down  without  impatience  to 
listen  to  the  fireside  gossip  of  the  two  old  school- 
fellows. 

The  problem  of  how  to  open  a  play  is  compli- 
cated in  the  English  theatre  by  considerations 
wholly  foreign  to  art.  Until  quite  recently,  it 
used  to  be  held  impossible  for  a  playwright  to 
raise  his  curtain  upon  his  leading  character  or 
characters,  because  the  actor-manager  would  thus 
be  baulked  of  his  carefully  arranged  "  entrance  " 
and  "  reception,"  and,  furthermore,  because 
twenty-five  per  cent  of  the  audience  would  prob- 
ably arrive  about  a  quarter  of  an  hour  late,  and 
would  thus  miss  the  opening  scene  or  scenes.  It 
used  at  one  time  to  be  the  fashion  to  add  to  the 
advertisement  of  a  play  an  entreaty  that  the  audi- 
ence should  be  punctually  in  their  seats,  "  as  the 
interest  began  with  the  rise  of  the  curtain."  One 
has  seen  this  assertion  made  with  regard  to  plays 
in  which,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  interest  had  not 
begun  at  the  fall  of  the  curtain.  Nowadays,  man- 
agers, and  even  leading  ladies,  are  a  good  deal  less 
insistent  on  their  "  reception  "  than  they  used  to 
be.  They  realize  that  it  may  be  a  distinct  ad- 
vantage to  hold  the  stage  from  the  very  outset. 
There  are  few  more  effective  openings  than  that 
of  The  Second  Mrs.  Tanqueray,  where  we  find 


EXPOSITION  129 

Aubrey  Tanqueray  seated  squarely  at  his  bachelor 
dinner-table  with  Misquith  on  his  right  and  Jayne 
on  his  left.  It  may  even  be  taken  as  a  principle 
that,  where  it  is  desired  to  give  to  one  character 
a  special  prominence  and  predominance,  it  ought, 
if  possible,  to  be  the  first  figure  on  which  the  eye 
of  the  audience  falls.  In  a  Sherlock  Holmes  play, 
for  example,  the  curtain  ought  assuredly  to  rise 
on  the  great  Sherlock  enthroned  in  Baker  Street, 
with  Dr.  Watson  sitting  at  his  feet.  The  solitary 
entrance  of  Richard  III.  throws  his  figure  into  a 
relief  which  could  by  no  other  means  have  been 
attained.  So,  too,  it  would  have  been  a  mistake 
on  Sophocles'  part  to  let  any  one  but  the  protag- 
onist open  the  Oedipus  Rex. 

So  long  as  the  fashion  of  late  dinners  continues, 
however,  it  must  remain  a  measure  of  prudence  to 
let  nothing  absolutely  essential  to  the  comprehen- 
sion of  a  play  be  said  or  done  during  the  first 
ten  minutes  after  the  rise  of  the  curtain.  Here, 
again,  A  Doll's  House  may  be  cited  as  a  model, 
though  Ibsen,  certainly,  had  no  thought  of  the  , 
British  dinner-hour  in  planning  the  play.  The 
opening  scene  is  just  what  the  ideal  opening  scene 
ought  to  be  —  invaluable,  yet  not  indispensable. 
The  late-comer  who  misses  it  deprives  himself  of 
a  preliminary  glimpse  into  the  characters  of  Nora 
and  Helmer  and  the  relation  between  them;  but 
he  misses  nothing  that  is  absolutely  essential  to 
his  comprehension  of  the  play  as  a  whole.  This, 
then,  would  appear  to  be  a  sound  maxim  both  of 


I3o  PLAY-MAKING 

art  and  prudence :  let  your  first  ten  minutes  by  all 
means  be  crisp,  arresting,  stimulating,  but  do  not 
let  them  embody  any  absolutely  vital  matter,  igno- 
rance of  which  would  leave  the  spectator  in  the 
dark  as  to  the  general  design  and  purport  of  the 
play. 


VIII 

THE  FIRST  ACT 

BOTH  in  the  theory  and  in  practice,  of  late 
years,  war  has  been  declared  in  certain  quar- 
ters against  the  division  of  a  play  into  acts.  Stu- 
dents of  the  Elizabethan  stage  have  persuaded 
themselves,  by  what  I  believe  to  be  a  complete  mis- 
reading of  the  evidence,  that  Shakespeare  did  not, 
as  it  were,  "  think  in  acts,"  but  conceived  his  plays 
as  continuous  series  of  events,  without  any  pause 
or  intermission  in  their  flow.  It  can,  I  think,  be 
proved  beyond  any  shadow  of  doubt  that  they  are 
wrong  in  this ;  that  the  act  division  was  perfectly 
familiar  to  Shakespeare,  and  was  used  by  him  to 
give  to  the  action  of  his  plays  a  rhythm  which 
ought  not,  in  representation,  to  be  obscured  or 
falsified.  It  is  true  that  in  the  Elizabethan  theatre 
there  was  no  need  of  Jong  interacts  for  the  change 
of  scenes,  and  that  such  interacts  are  an  abuse  that 
calls  for  remedy.  But  we  have  abundant  evidence 
that  the  act  division  was  sometimes  marked  on  the 
Elizabethan  stage,  and  have  no  reason  to  doubt 
that  it  was  always  more  or  less  recognized,  and 
was  present  to  Shakespeare's  mind  no  less  than  to 
Ibsen's  or  Pinero's. 


I32  PLAY-MAKING 

Influenced  in  part,  perhaps,  by  the  Elizabethan 
theorists,  but  mainly  by  the  freakishness  of  his  own 
genius,  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw  has  taken  to  writing 
plays  in  one  continuous  gush  of  dialogue,  and  has 
put  forward,  more  or  less  seriously,  the  claim 
that  he  is  thereby  reviving  the  practice  of  the 
Greeks.  In  a  prefatory  note  to  Getting  Married, 
he  says  — 

"  There  is  a  point  of  some  technical  interest  to  be 
noted  in  this  play.  The  customary  division  into  acts 
and  scenes  has  been  disused,  and  a  return  made  to 
unity  of  time  and  place,  as  observed  in  the  ancient 
Greek  drama.  In  the  foregoing  tragedy,  The  Doc- 
tor's Dilemma,  there  are  five  acts;  the  place  is  al- 
tered five  times ;  and  the  time  is  spread  over  an  un- 
determined period  of  more  than  a  year.  No  doubt 
the  strain  on  the  attention  of  the  audience  and  on 
the  ingenuity  of  the  playwright  is  much  less;  but  I 
find  in  practice  that  the  Greek  form  is  inevitable 
when  the  drama  reaches  a  certain  point  in  poetic 
and  intellectual  evolution.  Its  adoption  was  not,  on 
my  part,  a  deliberate  display  of  virtuosity  in  form, 
but  simply  the  spontaneous  falling  of  a  play  of  ideas 
into  the  form  most  suitable  to  it,  which  turned  out 
to  be  the  classical  form." 

It  is  hard  to  say  whether  Mr.  Shaw  is  here 
writing  seriously  or  in  a  mood  of  solemn  facetious- 
ness.  Perhaps  he  himself  is  not  quite  clear  on  the 
point.  There  can  be  no  harm,  at  any  rate,  in 
assuming  that  he  genuinely  believes  the  unity  of 
Getting  Married  to  be  "  a  return  to  the  unity  ob- 


THE   FIRST   ACT  133 

served  in,"  say,  the  Oedipus  Rex:,  and  examining  a 
little  into  so  pleasant  an  illusion. 

It  is,  if  I  may  so  phrase  it,  a  double-barrelled 
illusion.  Getting  Married  has  not  the  unity  of  the 
Greek  drama,  and  the  Greek  drama  has  not  the 
unity  of  Getting  Married.  Whatever  "  unity  "  is 
predicable  of  either  form  of  art  is  a  wholly  dif- 
ferent thing  from  whatever  "  unity  "  is  predicable 
of  the  other.  Mr.  Shaw,  in  fact,  is,  consciously 
or  unconsciously,  playing  with  words,  very  much 
as  Lamb  did  when  he  said  to  the  sportsman,  "  Is 
that  your  own  hare  or  a  wig?  "  There  are,  roughly 
speaking,  three  sorts  of  unity :  the '  unity  of  a 
plum-pudding,  the  unity  of  a  string  or  chain,  and 
the  unity  of  the  Parthenon.  Let  us  call  them,  re- 
spectively, unity  of  concoction,  unity  of  concatena- 
tion, and  structural  or  organic  unity.  The  second 
form  of  unity  is  that  of  most  novels  and  some  plays. 
They  present  a  series  of  events,  more  or  less  closely 
intertwined  or  interlinked  with  one  another,  but 
not  built  up  into  any  symmetrical  interdependence. 
This  unity  of  longitudinal  extension  does  not  here 
concern  us,  for  it  is  not  that  of  either  Shaw  or 
Sophocles.  Plum-pudding  unity,  on  the  other 
hand  —  the  unity  of  a  number  of  ingredients 
stirred  up  together,  put  in  a  cloth,  boiled  to  a  cer- 
tain consistency,  and  then  served  up  in  a  blue  flame 
of  lambent  humour  —  that  is  precisely  the  unity  of 
Getting  Married.  A  jumble  of  ideas,  prejudices, 
points  of  view,  and  whimsicalities  on  the  subject 
of  marriage  is  tied  up  in  a  cloth  and  boiled  into 


I34  PLAY-MAKING 

a  sort  of  glutinous  fusion  or  confusion,  so  that 
when  the  cloth  is  taken  off  they  do  not  at  once 
lose  the  coherent  rotundity  conferred  upon  them 
by  pressure  from  without.  In  a  quite  real  sense, 
the  comparison  does  more  than  justice  to  the 
technical  qualities  of  the  play;  for  in  a  good  plum- 
pudding  the  due  proportions  of  the  ingredients  are 
carefully  studied,  whereas  Mr.  Shaw  flings  in  reck- 
lessly whatever  comes  into  his  head.  At  the  same 

* 

time  it  is  undeniably  true  that  he  shows  us  a  num- 
ber of  people  in  one  room,  talking  continuously  and 
without  a  single  pause,  on  different  aspects  of  a 
given  theme.  If  this  be  unity,  then  he  has  achieved 
it.  In  the  theatre,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  plum- 
pudding  was  served  up  in  three  chunks  instead  of 
one;  but  this  was  a  mere  concession  to  human 
weakness.  The  play  had  all  the  globular  unity 
of  a  pill,  though  it  happened  to  be  too  big  a  pill 
to  be  swallowed  at  one  gulp. 

Turning  now  to  the  Oedipus  —  I  choose  that 
play  as  a  typical  example  of  Greek  tragedy  —  what 
sort  of  unity  do  we  find?  It  is  the  unity,  not  of 
a  continuous  mass  or  mash,  but  of  carefully  calcu- 
lated proportion,  order,  interrelation  of  parts  — 
the  unity  of  a  fine  piece  of  architecture,  or  even 
of  a  living  organism.  The  inorganic  continuity  of 
Getting  Married  it  does  not  possess.  If  that  be 
what  we  understand  by  unity,  then  Shaw  has  it 
and  Sophocles  has  not.  The  Oedipus  is  as  clearly 
divided  into  acts  as  is  Hamlet  or  Hedda  Gabler. 
In  modern  parlance,  we  should  probably  call  it  a 


THE   FIRST   ACT  135 

play  in  five  acts  and  an  epilogue.  It  so  happened 
that  the  Greek  theatre  did  not  possess  a  curtain,  and 
did  possess  a  Chorus;  consequently,  the  Greek 
dramatist  employed  the  Chorus,  as  we  employ  the 
curtain,  to  emphasize  the  successive  stages  of  his 
action,  to  mark  the  rhythm  of  its  progress,  and, 
incidentally,  to  provide  resting-places  for  the  mind 
of  the  audience  —  intervals  during  which  the  strain 
upon  their  attention  was  relaxed,  or  at  any  rate 
varied.  It  is  not  even  true  that  the  Greeks  habitu- 
ally aimed  at  such  continuity  of  time  as  we  find  in 
Getting  Married.  They  treated  time  ideally,  the 
imaginary  duration  of  the  story  being,  as  a  rule, 
widely  different  from  the  actual  time  of  repre- 
sentation. In  this  respect  the  Oedipus  is  something 
of  an  exception,  since  the  events  might,  at  a  pinch, 
be  conceived  as  passing  within  the  "  two  hours' 
traffick  of  the  stage  " ;  but  in  many  cases  a  whole 
day,  or  even  more,  must  be  understood  to  be  com- 
pressed within  these  two  hours.  It  is  true  that 
the  continuous  presence  of  the  Chorus  made  it  im- 
possible for  the  Greeks  to  overleap  months  and 
years,  as  we  do  on  the  modern  stage ;  but  they  did 
not  aim  at  that  strict  coincidence  of  imaginary 
with  actual  time  which  Mr.  Shaw  believes  himself 
to  have  achieved.1  Even  he,  however,  subjects  the 
events  which  take  place  behind  the  scenes  to  a  good 
deal  of  "  ideal  "  compression. 

1  There  are  several  cases  in  Greek  drama  in  which  a 
hero  leaves  the  stage  to  fight  a  battle  and  returns  victori- 
ous in  a  few  minutes.  See,  for  example,  the  Supplices  of 
Euripides. 


136  PLAY-MAKING 

Of  course,  when  Mr.  Shaw  protests  that,  in 
Getting  Married,  he  did  not  indulge  in  a  "  de- 
liberate display  of  virtuosity  of  form,"  that  is 
only  his  fun.  You  cannot  well  have  virtuosity  of 
form  where  there  is  no  form.  What  he  did  was  to 
rely  upon  his  virtuosity  of  dialogue  to  enable  him 
to  dispense  with  form.  Whether  he  succeeded  or 
not  is  a  matter  of  opinion  which  does  not  at  pres- 
ent concern  us.  The  point  to  be  noted  is  the  essen- 
tial difference  between  the  formless  continuity  of 
Getting  Married,  and  the  sedulous  ordering  and 
balancing  of  clearly  differentiated  parts,  which 
went  to  the  structure  of  a  Greek  tragedy.  A 
dramatist  who  can  so  develop  his  story  as  to  bring 
it  within  the  quasi-Aristotelean  "  unities "  per- 
forms a  curious  but  not  particularly  difficult  or 
valuable  feat;  but  this  does  not,  or  ought  not  to, 
imply  the  abandonment  of  the  act-division,  which 
is  no  mere  convention,  but  a  valuable  means  of 
marking  the  rhythm  of  the  story.  When,  on  the 
other  hand,  you  have  no  'story  to  tell,  the  act- 
division  is  manifestly  superfluous;  but  it  needs  no 
"  virtuosity  "  to  dispense  with  it. 

It  is  a  grave  error,  then,  to  suppose  that  the  act 
is  a  mere  division  of  convenience,  imposed  by  the 
limited  power  of  attention  of  the  human  mind,  or 
by  the  need  of  the  human  body  for  occasional  re- 
freshment. A  play  with  a  well-marked,  well- 
balanced  act-structure  is  a  higher  artistic  organism 
than  a  play  with  no  act-structure,  just  as  a  verte- 
brate animal  is  higher  than  a  mollusc.  In  every 


THE    FIRST   ACT  137 

crisis  of  real  life  (unless  it  be  so  short  as  to  be 
a  mere  incident)  there  is  a  rhythm  of  rise,  progress, 
culmination  and  solution.  We  are  not  always,  per- 
haps not  often,  conscious  of  these  stages ;  but  that 
is  only  because  we  do  not  reflect  upon  our  ex- 
periences while  they  are  passing,  or  map  them  out 
in  memory  when  they  are  past.  We  do,  however, 
constantly  apply  to  real-life  crises  expressions  bor- 
rowed more  or  less  directly  from  the  terminology 
of  the  drama.  We  say,  somewhat  incorrectly, 
"  Things  have  come  to  a  climax,"  meaning  thereby 
a  culmination ;  or  we  say,  "  The  catastrophe  is  at 
hand,"  or,  again,  "  What  a  fortunate  denoue- 
ment! "  Be  this  as  it  may,  it  is  the  business  of 
the  dramatist  to  analyse  the  crises  with  which  he 
deals,  and  to  present  them  to  us  in  their  rhythm 
of  growth,  culmination,  solution.  To  this  end  the 
act-division  is  —  not,  perhaps,  essential,  since  the 
rhythm  may  be  marked  even  in  a  one-act  play  — 
but  certainly  of  enormous  and  invaluable  conven- 
ience. "  Si  1'acte  n'existait  pas,  il  faudrait  1'in- 
venter  " ;  but  as  a  matter  of  fact  it  has  existed 
wherever,  in  the  Western  world,  the  drama  has  de- 
veloped beyond  its  rudest  beginnings. 

It  was  doubtless  the  necessity  for  marking  this 
rhythm  that  Aristotle  had  in  mind  when  he  said 
that  a  dramatic  action  must  have  a  beginning,  a 
middle  and  an  end.  Taken  in  its  simplicity,  this 
principle  would  indicate  the  three-act  division  as 
the  ideal  scheme  for  a  play.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
many  of  the  best  modern  plays  in  all  languages 


138  PLAY-MAKING 

fall  into  three  acts ;  one  has  only  to  note  Monsieur 
Alphonse,  Francillon,  La  Parisienne,  Amoureuse, 
A  Doll's  House,  Ghosts,  The  Master  Builder,  Little 
Eyolf,  Johannisfeuer,  Caste,  Candida,  The  Benefit 
of  the  Doubt,  The  Importance  of  Being  Earnest, 
The  Silver  Box;  and,  furthermore,  many  old  plays 
which  are  nominally  in  five  acts  really  fall  into  a 
triple  rhythm,  and  might  better  have  been  divided 
into  three.  Alexandrian  precept,  handed  on  by 
Horace,  gave  to  the  five-act  division  a  purely  arbi- 
trary sanction,  which  induced  playwrights  to  mask 
the  natural  rhythm  of  their  themes  beneath  this 
artificial  one.1  But  in  truth  the  three-act  division 
ought  no  more  to  be  elevated  into  an  absolute  rule 
than  the  five-act  division.  We  have  seen  that  a  play 
consists,  or  ought  to  consist,  of  a  great  crisis, 
worked  out  through  a  series  of  minor  crises.  An 
act,  then,  ought  to  consist  either  of  a  minor  crisis, 
carried  to  its  temporary  solution,  or  of  a  well- 
marked  group  of  such  crises ;  and  there  can  be  no 
rule  as  to  the  number  of  such  crises  which  ought 
to  present  themselves  in  the  development  of  a  given 
theme. '  On  the  modern  stage,  five  acts  may  be  re- 
garded as  the  maximum,  simply  by  reason  of  the 
time-limit  imposed  by  social  custom  on  a  perform- 
ance. But  one  frequently  sees  a  melodrama  di- 
vided into  "  five  acts  and  eight  tableaux,"  or  even 

1  So  far  was  Shakespeare  from  ignoring  the  act-division 
that  it  is  a  question  whether  his  art  did  not  sometimes  suf- 
fer from  the  supposed  necessity  of  letting  a  fourth  act  in- 
tervene between  the  culmination  in  the  third  act  and  the 
catastrophe  in  the  fifth. 


THE   FIRST   ACT  139 

more;  which  practically  means  that  the  play  is  in 
eight,  or  nine,  or  ten  acts,  but  that  there  will  be  only 
the  four  conventional  interacts  in  the  course  of  the 
evening.  The  playwright  should  not  let  himself 
be  constrained  by  custom  to  force  his  theme  into 
the  arbitrary  mould  of  a  stated  number  of  acts. 
Three  acts  is  a  good  number,  four  acts  is  a  good 
number,1  there  is  no  positive  objection  to  five  acts. 
Should  he  find  himself  hankering  after  more  acts, 
he  will  do  well  to  consider  whether  he  be  not,  at 
one  point  or  another,  failing  in  the  art  of  conden- 
sation and  trespassing  on  the  domain  of  the 
novelist. 

There  is  undoubted  convenience  in  the  rule  of 
the  modern  stage :  "  One  act,  one  scene."  A 
change  of  scene  in  the  middle  of  an  act  is  not 
only  materially  difficult,  but  tends  to  impair  the 
particular  order  of  illusion  at  which  the  modern  • 
drama  aims.2  Roughly,  indeed,  an  act  may  be  de- 

1  I  think  it  may  be  said  that  the  majority  of  modern  seri- 
ous plays  are  in  four  acts.  It  is  a  favourite  number  with 
Sir  Arthur  Pinero,  Mr.  Henry  Arthur  Jones,  Mr.  Clyde 
Fitch,  and  Mr.  Alfred  Sutro. 

1  This  must  not  be  taken  to  mean  that  in  no  case  is  a 
change  of  scene  within  the  act  advisable.  The  point  to  be 
considered  is  whether  the  author  does  or  does  not  want  to 
give  the  audience  time  for  reflection  —  time  to  return  to 
the  real  world  —  between  two  episodes.  If  it  is  of  great 
importance  that  they  should  not  do  so,  then  a  rapid  change 
of  scene  may  be  the  less  of  two  evils.  In  this  case  the 
lights  should  be  kept  lowered  in  order  to  show  that  no  in- 
teract is  intended;  but  the  fashion  of  changing  the  scene 
on  a  pitch-dark  stage,  without  dropping  the  curtain,  is  much 
to  be  deprecated.  If  the  revolving  stage  should  ever  be- 
come a  common  institution  in  English-speaking  countries, 
dramatists  would  doubtless  be  more  tempted  than  they  are 


140  PLAY-MAKING 

fined  as  any  part  of  a  given  crisis  which  works 
itself  out  at  one  time  and  in  one  place;  but  more 
fundamentally  it  is  a  segment  of  the  action  during 
which  the  author  desires  to  hold  the  attention  of 
his  audience  unbroken  and  unrelaxed.  It  is  no 
mere  convention,  however,  which  decrees  that  the 
flight  of  time  is  best  indicated  by  an  interact. 
When  the  curtain  is  down,  the  action  on  the  stage 
remains,  as  it  were,  in  suspense.  The  audience 
lets  its  attention  revert  to  the  affairs  of  real  life; 
and  it  is  quite  willing,  when  the  mimic  world  is 
once  more  revealed,  to  suppose  that  any  reason- 
able space  of  time  has  elapsed  while  its  thoughts 
were  occupied  with  other  matters.  It  is  much 
more  difficult  for  it  to  accept  a  wholly  imaginary 
lapse  of  time  while  its  attention  is  centred  on  the 
mimic  world.  Some  playwrights  have  of  late  years 
adopted  the  device  of  dropping  their  curtain  once, 
or  even  twice,  in  the  middle  of  an  act,  to  indicate 
an  interval  of  a  few  minutes,  or  even  of  an  hour 
—  for  instance,  of  the  time  between  "  going  in  to 
dinner  "  and  the  return  of  the  ladies  to  the  draw- 
ing-room. Sir  Arthur  Pinero  employs  this  device 
with  good  effect  in  Iris;  so  does  Mr.  Granville 
Barker  in  Waste,  and  Mr.  Galsworthy  in  The 
Silver  Box.  It  is  certainly  far  preferable  to  that 
"  ideal "  treatment  of  time  which  was  common  in 

at  present  to  change  their  scenes  within  the  act;  but  I 
doubt  whether  the  tendency  would  be  wholly  advantageous. 
No  absolute  rule,  however,  can  be  laid  down,  and  it  may 
well  be  maintained  that  a  true  dramatic  artist  could  only 
profit  by  the  greater  flexibility  of  his  medium. 


THE    FIRST    ACT  141 

the  French  drama  of  the  nineteenth  century,  and 
survives  to  this  day  in  plays  adapted  or  imitated 
from  the  French. 

I  remember  seeing  in  London,  not  very  long  ago, 
a  one-act  play  on  the  subject  of  Rouget  de  1'Isle. 
In  the  space  of  about  half-an-hour,  he  handed  the 
manuscript  of  the  "  Marseillaise "  to  an  opera- 
singer  whom  he  adored,  she  took  it  away  and  sang 
it  at  the  Opera,  it  caught  the  popular  ear  from 
that  one  performance,  and  the  dying  Rouget  heard 
it  sung  by  the  passing  multitude  in  the  streets  with- 
in about  fifteen  minutes  of  the  moment  when  it 
first  left  his  hands.  (The  whole  piece,  I  repeat, 
occupied  about  half-an-hour;  but  as  a  good  deal 
of  that  time  was  devoted  to  preliminaries,  not 
more  than  fifteen  minutes  can  have  elapsed  between 
the  time  when  the  cantatrice  left  Rouget's  garret 
and  the  time  when  all  Paris  was  singing  the  "  Mar- 
seillaise"). This  is  perhaps  an  extreme  instance 
of  the  ideal  treatment  of  time;  but  one  could  find 
numberless  cases  in  the  works  of  Scribe,  Labiche, 
and  others,  in  which  the  transactions  of  many  hours 
are  represented  as  occurring  within  the  limits  of 
a  single  act.  Our  modern  practice  eschews  such 
licenses.  It  will  often  compress  into  an  act  of 
half-an-hour  more  events  than  would  probably  hap- 
pen in  real  life  in  a  similar  space  of  time,  but  not 
such  a  train  of  occurrences  as  to  transcend  the 
limits  of  possibility.  It  must  be  remembered,  how- 
ever, that  the  standard  of  verisimilitude  naturally 
and  properly  varies  with  the  seriousness  of  the 


142  PLAY-MAKING 

theme  under  treatment.  Improbabilities  are  ad- 
missible in  light  comjsdy,  and  still  more  in  farce, 
which  would  wreck  the  fortunes  of  a  drama  pur- 
porting to  present  a  sober  and  faithful  picture  of 
real  life. 

Acts,  then,  mark  the  time-stages  in  the  develop- 
ment of  a  given  crisis;  and  each  act  ought  to 
embody  a  minor  crisis  of  its  own,  with  a  culmi- 
nation and  a  temporary  solution.  It  would  be 
no  gain,  but  a  loss,  if  a  whole  two  hours'  or  three 
hours'  -action  could  be  carried  through  in  one  con- 
tinuous movement,  with  no  relaxation  of  the  strain 
upon  the  attention  of  the  audience,  and  without  a 
single  point  at  which  the  spectator  might  review 
what  was  past  and  anticipate  what  was  to  come. 
The  act-division  positively  enhances  the  amount  of 
pleasurable  emotion  through  which  the  audience 
passes.  Each  act  ought  to  stimulate  and  tempo- 
rarily satisfy  an  interest  of  its  own,  while  definitely 
advancing  the  main  action.  The  psychological 
principle  is  evident  enough;  namely,  that  there 
is  more  sensation  to  be  got  out  of  three  or  four 
comparatively  brief  experiences,  suited  to  our 
powers  of  perception,  than  out  of  one  protracted 
experience,  forced  on  us  without  relief,  without 
contrast,  in  such  a  way  as  to  fatigue  and  deaden 
our  faculties.  Who  would  not  rather  drink  three, 
four,  or  five  glasses  of  wine  than  put  the  bottle  to 
his  lips  and  let  its  contents  pour  down,  his  throat 
in  one  long  draught?  Who  would  not  rather  see 
a  stained-glass  window  broken  into  three,  four,  or 


THE   FIRST   ACT  143 

five  cunningly-proportioned  "  lights,"  than  a  great 
flat  sheet  of  coloured  glass,  be  its  design  never  so 
effective  ? 

It  used  to  be  the  fashion  in  mid-Victorian  melo- 
dramas to  give  each  act  a  more  or  less  alluring 
title  of  its  own.  I  am  far  from  recommending 
the  revival  of  this  practice;  but  it  might  be  no 
bad  plan  for  a  beginner,  in  sketching  out  a  play, 
to  have  in  his  mind,  or  in  his  private  notes,  a 
descriptive  head-line  for  each  act,  thereby  assuring 
himself  that  each  had  a  character  of  its  own,  and 
at  the  same  time  contributed  its  due  share  to  the 
advancement  of  the  whole  design.  Let  us  apply 
this  principle  to  a  Shakespearean  play  —  for  ex- 
ample, to  Macbeth.  The  act  headings  might  run 
somewhat  as  follows  — 

ACT  I.  —  TEMPTATION. 

ACT  II.  —  MURDER  AND  USURPATION. 

ACT  III.  —  THE    FRENZY    OF    CRIME   AND   THE 

HAUNTING  OF  REMORSE. 
ACT  IV.  —  GATHERING  RETRIBUTION. 
ACT  V.  —  RETRIBUTION  CONSUMMATED. 

Can  it  be  doubted  that  Shakespeare  had  in  his 
mind  the  rhythm  marked  by  this  act-division?  I 
do  not  mean,  of  course,  that  these  phrases,  or  any- 
thing like  them,  were  present  to  his  consciousness, 
but  merely  that  he  "  thought  in  acts,"  and  men- 
tally assigned  to  each  act  its  definite  share  in  the 
development  of  the  crisis. 

Turning  now  to  Ibsen,  let  us  draw  up  an  act- 


144  PLAY-MAKING 

scheme  for  the  simplest  and  most  straightforward 
of  his  plays,  An  Enemy  of  the  People.  It  might 
run  as  follows :  — 

ACT  I.  —  THE  INCURABLE  OPTIMIST.  —  Dr.  Stock- 
mann  announces  his  discovery  of  the  insanitary 
condition  of  the  Baths. 

ACT  II.  — THE  COMPACT  MAJORITY.  —  Dr.  Stock- 
mann  finds  that  he  will  have  to  fight  vested  in- 
terests before  the  evils  he  has  discovered  can  be 
remedied,  but  is  assured  that  the  Compact  Ma- 
jority is  at  his  back. 

ACT  III.  —  THE  TURN  OF  FORTUNE.  —  The  Doctor 
falls  from  the  pinnacle  of  his  optimistic  confi- 
dence, and  learns  that  he  will  have  the  Compact 
Majority,  not  at,  but  on,  his  back. 

ACT  IV.  —  THE  COMPACT  MAJORITY  ON  THE  WAR- 
PATH. —  The  crowd,  finding  that  its  immediate 
interests  are  identical  with  those  of  the  privi- 
leged few,  joins  with  the  bureaucracy  in  shout- 
ing down  the  truth,  and  organizing  a  conspiracy 
of  silence. 

ACT  V.  —  OPTIMISM  DISILLUSIONED  BUT  INDOMI- 
TABLE. —  Dr.  Stockmann,  gagged  and  thrown 
back  into  poverty,  is  tempted  to  take  flight,  but 
determines  to  remain  in  his  native  place  and  fight 
for  its  moral,  if  not  for  its  physical,  sanitation. 

Each  of  these  acts  is  a  little  drama  in  itself, 
while  each  leads  forward  to  the  next,  and  marks 
a  distinct  phase  in  the  development  of  the 
crisis. 

When  the  younger  Dumas  asked  his  father,  that 


THE   FIRST   ACT  145 

master  of  dramatic  movement,  to  initiate  him  into 
the  secret  of  dramatic  craftsmanship,  the  great 
Alexandre  replied  in  this  concise  formula :  "  Let 
your  first  act  be  clear,  your  last  act  brief,  and  the 
whole  interesting."  Of  the  wisdom  of  the  first 
clause  there  can  be  no  manner  of  doubt.  Whether 
incidentally  or  by  way  of  formal  exposition,  the 
first  act  ought  to  show  us  clearly  who  the  char- 
acters are,  what  are  their  relations  and  relation- 
ships, and  what  is  the  nature  of  the  gathering 
crisis.  It  is  very  important  that  the  attention  of 
the  audience  should  not  be  overstrained  in  follow- 
ing out  needlessly  complex  genealogies  and  kin- 
ships. How  often,  at  the  end  of  a  first  act,  does 
one  turn  to  one's  neighbour  and  say,  "  Are  Edith 
and  Adela  sisters  or  only  half-sisters?  "  or,  "  Did 
you  gather  what  was  the  villain's  claim  to  the 
title?"  If  a  story  cannot  be  made  clear  without 
an  elaborate  study  of  one  or  more  family  trees, 
beware  of  it.  In  all  probability,  it  is  of  very  little 
use  for  dramatic  purposes.  But  before  giving  it 
up,  see  whether  the  relationships,  and  other  re- 
lations, cannot  be  simplified.  Complexities  which 
at  first  seemed  indispensable  will  often  prove  to 
be  mere  useless  encumbrances. 

In  Pillars  of  Society  Ibsen  goes  as  far  as  any 
playwright  ought  to  go  in  postulating  fine  degrees 
of  kinship  —  and  perhaps  a  little  further.  Karsten 
Bernick  has  married  into  a  family  whose  gradations 
put  something  of  a  strain  on  the  apprehension  and 
memory  of  an  audience.  We  have  to  bear  in  mind 


I46  PLAY-MAKING 

that  Mrs.  Bernick  has  (a)  a  half-sister,  Lona 
Hessel;  (b)  a  full  brother,  Johan  Tonnesen; 
(c)  a  cousin,  Hilmar  Tonnesen.  Then  Bernick 
has  an  unmarried  sister,  Martha;  another  re- 
lationship, however  simple,  to  be  borne  in  mind. 
And,  finally,  when  we  see  Dina  Dorf  living  in 
Bernick's  house,  and  know  that  Bernick  has  had 
an  intrigue  with  her  mother,  we  are  apt  to  fall 
into  the  error  of  supposing  her  to  be  Bernick's 
daughter.  There  is  only  one  line  which  proves  that 
this  is  not  so  —  a  remark  to  the  effect  that,  when 
Madam  Dorf  came  to  the  town,  Dina  was  already 
old  enough  to  run  about  and  play  angels  in  the 
theatre.  Any  one  who  does  not  happen  to  hear 
or  notice  this  remark,  is  almost  certain  to  mis- 
apprehend Dina's  parentage.  Taking  one  thing 
with  another,  then,  the  Bernick  family  group  is 
rather  more  complex  than  is  strictly  desirable. 
Ibsen's  reasons  for  making  Lona  Hessel  a  half- 
sister  instead  of  a  full  sister  of  Mrs.  Bernick  are 
evident  enough.  He  wanted  her  to  be  a  con- 
siderably older  woman,  of  a  very  different  type 
of  character;  and  it  was  necessary,  in  order  to 
explain  Karsten's  desertion  of  Lona  for  Betty, 
that  the  latter  should  be  an  heiress,  while  the  for- 
mer was  penniless.  These  reasons  are  clear  and 
apparently  adequate;  yet  it  may  be  doubted 
whether  the  dramatist  did  not  lose  more  than 
he  gained  by  introducing  even  this  small  degree 
of  complexity.  It  was  certainly  not  necessary  to 
explain  the  difference  of  age  and  character  be- 


THE   FIRST   ACT  147 

tween  Lona  and  Betty;  while  as  for  the  money, 
there  would  have  been  nothing  improbable  in  sup- 
posing that  a  wealthy  uncle  had  marked  his  dis- 
approval of  Lona's  strong-mindedness  by  bequeath- 
ing all  his  property  to  her  younger  sister.  Again, 
there  is  no  reason  why  Hilmar  should  not  have 
been  a  brother  of  Johan  and  Betty ; *  in  which  case 
we  should  have  had  the  simple  family  group  of  two 
brothers  and  two  sisters,  instead  of  the  compara- 
tively complex  relationship  of  a  brother  and  sister, 
a  half-sister  and  a  cousin. 

These  may  seem  very  trivial  considerations :  but 
nothing  is  really  trivial  when  it  comes  to  be  placed 
under  the  powerful  lens  of  theatrical  presentation. 
Any  given  audience  has  only  a  certain  measure  of 
attention  at  command,  and  to  claim  attention  for 
inessentials  is  to  diminish  the  stock  available  for 
essentials.  In  only  one  other  play  does  Ibsen  intro- 
duce any  complexity  of  relationship,  and  in  that 
case  it  does  not  appear  in  the  exposition,  but  is 
revealed  at  a  critical  moment  towards  the  close. 
In  Little  Eyolf,  Asta  and  Allmers  are  introduced 
to  us  at  first  as  half-sister  and  half-brother;  and 
only  at  the  end  of  the  second  act  does  it  appear 
that  Asta's  mother  (Allmers'  stepmother)  was  un- 
faithful to  her  husband,  and  that,  Asta  being  the 
fruit  of  this  infidelity,  there  is  no  blood  kinship 
between  her  and  Allmers.  The  danger  of  relying 
upon  such  complexities  is  shown  by  the  fact  that 

1  He  was,  in  the  first  draft;  and  Lona  Hessel  was  only 
a  distant  relative  of  Bernick's. 


I48  PLAY-MAKING 

so  acute  a  critic  as  M.  Jules  Lemaitre,  in  writing 
of  Little  Eyolf,  mistook  the  situation,  and  thought 
that  Asta  fled  from  Allmers  because  he  was  her 
brother,  whereas  in  fact  she  fled  because  he  was 
not.  I  had  the  honour  of  calling  M.  Lemaitre's 
attention  to  this  error,  which  he  handsomely 
acknowledged. 

Complexities  of  kinship  are,  of  course,  not  the 
only  complexities  which  should,  so  far  as  possible, 
be  avoided.  Every  complexity  of  relation  or  of 
-  antecedent  circumstance  is  in  itself  a  weakness, 
which,  if  it  cannot  be  eliminated,  must,  so  to  speak, 
be  lived  down.  No  dramatic  critic,  I  think,  can 
have  failed  to  notice  that  the  good  plays  are 
those  of  which  the  story  can  be  clearly  indi- 
cated in  ten  lines;  while  it  very  often  takes  a 
column  to  give  even  a  confused  idea  of  the  plot 
of  a  bad  play.  Here,  then,  is  a  preliminary  test 
which  may  be  commended  to  the  would-be  play- 
wright, in  order  to  ascertain  whether  the  subject 
he  is  contemplating  is  or  is  not  a  good  one:  can 
he  state  the  gist  of  it  in  a  hundred  words  or  so, 
like  the  "argument"  of  a  Boccaccian  novella? 
The  test,  of  course,  is  far  from  being  infallible; 
for  a  theme  may  err  on  the  side  of  over-simplicity 
or  emptiness,  no  less  than  on  the  side  of  over- 
complexity.  But  it  is,  at  any  rate,  negatively  use- 
ful: if  the  playwright  finds  that  he  cannot 
make  his  story  comprehensible  without  a  long 
explanation  of  an  intricate  network  of  facts,  he 
may  be  pretty  sure  that  he  has  got  hold  of  a  bad 


THE   FIRST   ACT  149 

theme,  or  of  one  that  stands  sorely  in  need  of 
simplification.1 

It  is  not  sufficient,  however,  that  a  first  act 
should  fulfil  Dumas's  requirement  by  placing  the 
situation  clearly  before  us:  it  ought  also  to  carry 
us  some  way  towards  the  heart  of  the  drama,  or, 
at  the  very  least,  to  point  distinctly  towards  that 
quarter  of  the  horizon  where  the  clouds  are  gather- 
ing up.  In  a  three-act  play  this  is  evidently  de- 
manded by  the  most  elementary  principles  of  pro- 
portion. It  would  be  absurd  to  make  one-third 
of  the  play  merely  introductory,  and  compress  the 
whole  action  into  the  remaining  two-thirds.  But 
even  in  a  four-  or  five-act  play,  the  interest  of 
the  audience  ought  to  be  strongly  enlisted,  and 
its  anticipation  headed  in  a  definite  direction,  be- 
fore the  curtain  falls  for  the  first  time.  When  we 
find  a  dramatist  of  repute  neglecting  this  principle, 
we  may  suspect  some  reason  with  which  art  has 
no  concern.  Several  of  Sardou's  social  dramas 
begin  with  two  acts  of  more  or  less  smart  and 
entertaining  satire  or  caricature,  and  only  at  the 
end  of  the  second  or  beginning  of  the  third  act 
(out  of  five)  does  the  drama  proper  set  in.  What 
was  the  reason  of  this?  Simply  that  under  the 
system  of  royalties  prevalent  in  France,  it  was 
greatly  to  the  author's  interest  that  his  play  should 


1  The  Greeks,  who  knew  most  things,  knew  the  value  of 
manageable  dimensions  and  simple  structure  in  a  work  of 
art,  and  had  a  word  to  express  that  combination  of  quali- 
ties—  the  word  eusynopton. 


150  PLAY-MAKING 

fill  the  whole  evening.  Sardou  needed  no  more 
than  three  acts  for  the  development  of  his  drama; 
to  have  spread  it  out  thinner  would  have  been  to 
weaken  and  injure  it;  wherefore  he  preferred  to 
occupy  an  hour  or  so  with  clever  dramatic  jour- 
nalism, rather  than  share  the  evening,  and  the 
fees,  with  another  dramatist.  So,  at  least,  I  have 
heard  his  practice  explained;  perhaps  his  own  ac- 
count of  the  matter  may  have  been  that  he  wanted 
to  paint  a  broad  social  picture  to  serve  as  a  back- 
ground for  his  action. 

The  question  how  far  an  audience  ought  to  be 
carried  towards  the  heart  of  a  dramatic  action  in 
the  course  of  the  first  act  is  always  and  inevitably 
one  of  proportion.  It  is  clear  that  too  much  ought 
not  to  be  told,  so  as  to  leave  the  remaining  acts 
meagre  and  spun-out;  nor  should  any  one  scene 
be  so  intense  in  its  interest  as  to  outshine  all  sub- 
sequent scenes,  and  give  to  the  rest  of  the  play  an 
effect  of  anti-climax.  If  the  strange  and  fasci- 
nating creations  of  Ibsen's  last  years  were  to  be 
judged  by  ordinary  dramaturgic  canons,  we  should 
have  to  admit  that  in  Little  Eyolf  he  was  guilty  of 
the  latter  fault,  since  in  point  of  sheer  "  strength," 
in  the  common  acceptation  of  the  word,  the  situ- 
ation at  the  end  of  the  first  act  could  scarcely  be 
outdone,  in  that  play  or  any  other.  The  beginner, 
however,  is  far  more  likely  to  put  too  little  than 
too  much  into  his  first  act:  he  is  more  likely  to 
leave  our  interest  insufficiently  stimulated  than  to 
carry  us  too  far  in  the  development  of  his  theme. 


THE   FIRST   ACT  151 

My  own  feeling  is  that,  as  a  general  rule,  what 
Freytag  calls  the  erregende  Moment  ought  by  all 
means  to  fall  within  the  first  act.  What  is  the 
erregende  Moment?  One  is  inclined  to  render  it 
"  the  firing  of  the  fuse."  In  legal  parlance,  it 
might  be  interpreted  as  the  joining  of  issue.  It 
means  the  point  at  which  the  drama,  hitherto  latent, 
plainly  declares  itself.  It  means  the  germination 
of  the  crisis,  the  appearance  on  the  horizon  of  the 
cloud  no  bigger  than  a  man's  hand.  I  suggest, 
then,  that  this  erregende  Moment  ought  always  to 
come  within  the  first  act  —  if  it  is  to  come  at  all. 
There  are  plays,  as  we  have  seen,  which  depict 
life  on  so  even  a  plane  that  it  is  impossible  to 
say  at  any  given  point,  "  Here  the  drama  sets  in," 
or  "  The  interest  is  heightened  there." 

Pillars  of  Society  is,  in  a  sense,  Ibsen's  prentice- 
work  in  the  form  of  drama  which  he  afterwards 
perfected;  wherefore  it  affords  us  numerous  illus- 
trations of  the  problems  we  have  to  consider. 
Does  he,  or  does  he  not,  give  us  in  the  first  act 
sufficient  insight  into  his  story?  I  am  inclined 
to  answer  the  question  in  the  negative.  The  first 
act  puts  us  in  possession  of  the  current  version 
of  the  Bernick-Tonnesen  family  history,  but  it 
gives  us  no  clear  indication  that  this  version  is  an 
elaborate  tissue  of  falsehoods.  It  is  true  that  Ber- 
nick's  evident  uneasiness  and  embarrassment  at 
the  mere  idea  of  the  re-appearance  of  Lona  and 
Johan  may  lead  us  to  suspect  that  all  is  not  as  it 
seems;  but  simple  annoyance  at  the  inopportune 


152  PLAY-MAKING 

arrival  of  the  black  sheep  of  the  family  might  be 
sufficient  to  account  for  this.  To  all  intents  and 
purposes,  we  are  completely  in  the  dark  as  to  the 
course  the  drama  is  about  to  take;  and  when,  at 
the  end  of  the  first  act,  Lona  Hessel  marches  in 
and  flutters  the  social  dovecote,  we  do  not  know 
in  what  light  to  regard  her,  or  why  we  are  sup- 
posed to  sympathize  with  her.  The  fact  that  she 
is  eccentric,  and  that  she  talks  of  "  letting  in  fresh 
air,"  combines  with  our  previous  knowledge  of 
the  author's  idiosyncrasy  to  assure  us  that  she 
is  his  heroine;  but  so  far  as  the  evidence  actually 
before  us  goes,  we  have  no  means  of  forming  even 
the  vaguest  provisional  judgment  as  to  her  true 
character.  This  is  almost  certainly  a  mistake  in 
art.  It  is  useless  to  urge  that  sympathy  and  an- 
tipathy are  primitive  emotions,  and  that  we  ought 
to  be  able  to  regard  a  character  objectively,  rating 
it  as  true  or  false,  not  as  attractive  or  repellent. 
The  answer  to  this  is  twofold.  Firstly,  the  theatre 
has  never  been,  and  never  will  be,  a  moral  dis- 
secting room,  nor  has  the  theatrical  audience  any- 
thing in  common  with  a  class  of  students  dispas- 
sionately following  a  professor's  demonstration  of 
cold  scientific  facts.  Secondly,  in  the  particular 
case  in  point,  the  dramatist  makes  a  manifest  ap- 
peal to  our  sympathies.  There  can  be  no  doubt 
that  we  are  intended  to  take  Lona's  part,  as  against 
the  representatives  of  propriety  and  convention 
assembled  at  the  sewing-bee;  but  we  have  been 
vouchsafed  no  rational  reason  for  so  doing.  In 


THE   FIRST   ACT  153 

other  words,  the  author  has  not  taken  us  far 
enough  into  his  action  to  enable  us  to  grasp  the 
true  import  and  significance  of  the  situation.  He 
relies  for  his  effect  either  on  the  general  principle 
that  an  eccentric  character  must  be  sympathetic, 
or  on  the  knowledge  possessed  by  those  who  have 
already  seen  or  read  the  rest  of  the  play.  Either 
form  of  reliance  is  clearly  inartistic.  The  former 
appeals  to  irrational  prejudice;  the  latter  ignores 
what  we  shall  presently  find  to  be  a  fundamental 
principle  of  the  playwright's  art  —  namely,  that, 
with  certain  doubtful  exceptions  in  the  case  of  his- 
torical themes,  he  must  never  assume  previous 
knowledge  either  of  plot  or  character  on  the  part 
of  his  public,  but  must  always  have  in  his  mind's 
eye  a  first-night  audience,  which  knows  nothing 
but  what  he  chooses  to  tell  it. 

My  criticism  of  the  first  act  of  Pillars  of  Society 
may  be  summed  up  in  saying  that  the  author  has 
omitted  to  place  in  it  the  erregende  Moment.  The 
issue  is  not  joined,  the  true  substance  of  the  drama 
is  not  clear  to  us,  until,  in  the  second  act,  Bernick 
makes  sure  there  are  no  listeners,  and  then  holds 
out  both  hands  to  Johan,  saying:  "  Johan,  now 
we  are  alone;  now  you  must  give  me  leave  to 
thank  you,"  and  so  forth.  Why  should  not  this 
scene  have  occurred  in  the  first  act?  Materially, 
there  is  no  reason  whatever.  It  would  need  only 
the  change  of  a  few  words  to  lift  the  scene  bodily 
out  of  the  second  act  and  transfer  it  to  the  first. 
Why  did  Ibsen  not  do  so?  His  reason  is  not 


154  PLAY-MAKING" 

hard  to  divine;  he  wished  to  concentrate  into 
two  great  scenes,  with  scarcely  a  moment's  inter- 
val between  them,  the  revelation  of  Bernick's 
treachery,  first  to  Johan,  second  to  Lona.  He 
gained  his  point :  the  sledge-hammer  effect  of  these 
two  scenes  is  undeniable.  But  it  remains  a  ques- 
tion whether  he  did  not  make  a  disproportionate 
sacrifice;  whether  he  did  not  empty  his  first  act 
in  order  to  overfill  his  second.  I  do  not  say  he  did : 
I  merely  propound  the  question  for  the  student's 
consideration.  One  thing  we  must  recognize  in 
dramatic  art  as  in  all  other  human  affairs ;  namely, 
that  perfection,  if  not  unattainable,  is  extremely 
rare.  We  have  often  to  make  a  deliberate  sacri- 
fice at  one  point  in  order  to  gain  some  greater 
advantage  at  another;  to  incur  imperfection  here 
that  we  may  achieve  perfection  there.  It  is  no 
disparagement  to  the  great  masters  to  admit  that 
they  frequently  show  us  rather  what  to  avoid 
than  what  to  do.  Negative  instruction,  indeed,  is 
in  its  essence  more  desirable  than  positive.  The 
latter  tends  to  make  us  mere  imitators,  whereas  the 
former,  in  saving  us  from  dangers,  leaves  our 
originality  unimpaired. 

It  is  curious  to  note  that,  in  another  play,  Ibsen 
did  actually  transfer  the  erregende  Moment,  the 
joining  of  issue,  from  the  second  act  to  the  first. 
In  his  early  draft  of  Rosmersholm,  the  great 
scene  in  which  Rosmer  confesses  to  Kroll  his 
change  of  views  did  not  occur  until  the  second 
act.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  balance  and 


THE    FIRST   ACT 


155 


proportion  of  the  play  gained  enormously  by  the 
transference. 

After  all,  however,  the  essential  question  is  not 
how  much  or  how  little  is  conveyed  to  us  in  the 
first  act,  but  whether  our  interest  is  thoroughly 
aroused,  and,  what  is  of  equal  importance,  skil- 
fully carried  forward.  Before  going  more  at  large 
into  this  very  important  detail  of  the  playwright's 
craft,  it  may  be  well  to  say  something  of  the 
nature  of  dramatic  interest  in  general. 


•/  V 


IX 
"CURIOSITY"  AND  "INTEREST" 

THE  paradox  of  dramatic  theory  is  this :  while 
our  aim  is,  of  course,  to  write  plays  which 
shall  achieve  immortality,  or  shall  at  any  rate  be- 
come highly  popular,  and  consequently  familiar  in 
advance  to  a  considerable  proportion  of  any  given 
audience,  we  are  all  the  time  studying  how  to 
awaken  and  to  sustain  that  interest,  or,  more  pre- 
cisely,  that  curiosity,  which  can  be  felt  only  by 
those  who  see  the  play  for  the  first  time,  without 
any  previous  knowledge  of  its  action.  Under  mod- 
ern  conditions  especially,  the  sirectators  who  come 
*p.  fa?  thffltrc_jajth  their  minds  an  absolute  blank 
aju>taoyJiaLj^_^waiting  them,  are  jcprnparatively 
fej»H  for  newspaper  criticism  and  society  gossip 
very  soon  bruit  abroad  a  general  idea  of  the  plot 
of  any  play  which  attains  a  reasonable  measure  of 
success.  Why,  then,  should  we  assume,  in  the  ideal 
spectator  to  whom  we  address  ourselves,  a  state  of 
mind  which,  we  hope  and  trust,  will  not  be  the 
state  of  mind  of  the  majority  of  actual  spectators  ? 
To  this  question  there  are  several  answers.  The 
first  and  most  obvious  is  that  to  one  audience, 
at  any  rate,  every  play  must  be  absolutely  new, 

156 


"CUROSITY"  AND  "INTEREST"      157 


and  that  it  is  this  first-night  audience  which  in 
great  measure  determines  its  success  or  failure. 
Many  plays  have  survived  a  first-night  failure,  and 
still  more  have  gone  off  in  a  rapid  decline  after 
a  first-night  success.  But  these  caprices  of  fortune 
are  not  to  be  counted  on.  The  only  prudent  course 
is  for  the  dramatist  to  direct  all  his  thought  and 
care  towards  conciliating  or  dominating  an  audi- 
ence to  which  his  theme  is  entirely  unknown,1  and 
so  coming  triumphant  through  his  first-night  or- 
deal. This  principle  is  subject  to  a  certain  quali- 
fication in  the  case  of  historic  and  legendary 
themes.  In  treating  such  subjects,  the  dramatist 
is  not  relieved  of  the  necessity  of  developing  his 
story  clearly  and  interestingly,  but  has,  on  the 
contrary,  an  additional  charge  imposed  upon  him 
—  that  of  not  flagrantly  defying  or  disappointing 
popular  knowledge  or  prejudice.  Charles  I  must 
not  die  in  a  green  old  age,  Oliver  Cromwell  must 
not  display  the  manners  and  graces  of  Sir  Charles 
Grandison,  Charles  II  must  not  be  represented  as 
a  model  of  domestic  virtue.  Historians  may  indict 
a  hero  or  whitewash  a  villain  at  their  leisure;  but 
to  the  dramatist  a  hero  must  be  (more  or  less) 
a  hero,  a  villain  (more  or  less)  a  villain,  if  ac- 
cepted tradition  so  decrees  it.2  Thus  popular 

1  The  view  that  the  dramatist  has  only  to  think  of  pleas- 
ing himself  is  elsewhere  dealt  with.  See  p.  13. 

3  Two  dramatists  who  have  read  these  pages  in  proof, 
exclaim  at  this  passage.  The  one  says,  "  No,  no  !  "  the 
other  asks,  "Why?"  I  can  only  reiterate  that,  where  there 
exists  a  strong  and  generally  accepted  tradition,  the  dram- 
atist not  only  runs  counter  to  it  at  his  peril,  but  goes  out- 


158  PLAY-MAKING 

knowledge  can  scarcely  be  said  to  lighten  a  dram- 
atist's task,  but  rather  to  impose  a  new  limitation 
upon  him.  In  some  cases,  however,  he  can  rely 
on  a  general  knowledge  of  the  historic  background 
of  a  given  period,  which  may  save  him  some  expo- 
sition. An  English  audience,  for  instance,  does 
not  require  to  be  told  what  was  the  difference 
between  Cavaliers  and  Roundheads;  nor  does  any 
audience,  I  imagine,  look  for  a  historical  disqui- 
sition on  the  Reign  of  Terror.  The  dramatist  has 
only  to  bring  on  some  ruffianly  characters  in 
Phrygian  caps,  who  address  each  other  as  "  Citi- 
zen "  and  "  Citizeness,"  and  at  once  the  imagi- 
nation of  the  audience  will  supply  the  roll  of  the 
tumbrils  and  the  silhouette  of  the  guillotine  in  the 
background.  \  * 

To  return  to  the  general  question:  (not  only 

side  the  true  domain  of  his  art  in  so  doing.  New  truth,  in 
history,  must  be  established  either  by  new  documents,  or  by 
a  careful  and  detailed  re-interpretation  of  old  documents; 
but  the  stage  is  not  the  place  either  for  the  production  of 
documents  or  for  historical  exegesis.  It  is  needless  to  say 
that  where  the  popular  mind  is  unbiassed,  the  dramatist's 
hands  are  free.  For  instance,  I  presume  that  one  might,  in 
England,  take  any  view  one  pleased  of  the  character  of 
Mary,  Queen  of  Scots ;  but  a  highly  unfavourable  view 
would  scarcely  be  accepted  by  Scottish  audiences.  Simi- 
larly, it  would  be  both  dangerous  and  unprofitable  to  pre- 
sent on  the  English  stage  any  very  damaging  "  scandal 
about  Queen  Elizabeth."  Historical  criticism,  I  understand, 
does  not  accept  the  view  that  Robespierre  was  mainly  re- 
sponsible for  the  Reign  of  Terror,  and  that  his  death  be- 
tokened a  general  revolt  against  his  sanguinary  tyranny; 
but  it  would  be  very  hard  for  any  dramatist  to  secure  gen- 
eral acceptance  for  a  more  accurate  reading  of  his  charac- 
ter and  function.  Some  further  remarks  on  this  subject 
will  be  found  in  Chapter  XIII. 


"CURIOSITY"  AND  "INTEREST"      159 

must  the  dramatist  reckon  with  one  all-important 
audience  which  is  totally  ignorant  of  the  story 
he  has  to  tell;  he  must  also  bear  in  mind  that  it 
is  very  easy  to  exaggerate  the  proportion  of  any 
given  audience  which  will  know  his  plot  in  ad- 
vance, even  when  his  play  has  been  performed  a 
thousand  times.  There  are  inexhaustible  possi- 
bilities of  ignorance  in  the  theatrical  public.  A 
story  is  told,  on  pretty  good  authority,  of  a  late 
eminent  statesman  who  visited  the  Lyceum  one 
night  when  Sir  Henry  Irving  was  appearing  as 
Hamlet.  After  the  third  act  he  went  to  the  actor's 
dressing-room,  expressed  great  regret  that  duty 
called  him  back  to  Westminster,  and  begged  Sir 
Henry  to  tell  him  how  the  play  ended,  as  it  had  in- 
terested him  greatly.1  One  of  our  most  eminent 
novelists  has  assured  me  that  he  never  saw  or  read 
Macbeth  until  he  was  present  at  (I  think)  Mr. 
Forbes  Robertson's  revival  of  the  play,  he  being 
then  nearer  fifty  than  forty.  These,  no  doubt,  are 
"freak"  instances;  but  in  any  given  audience, 
even  at  the  most  hackneyed  classical  plays,  there 
will  be  a  certain  percentage  of  children  (who  con- 
tribute as  much  as  their  elders  to  the  general  tem- 

1  A  malicious  anecdote  to  a  similar  effect  was  current  in 
the  early  days  of  Sir  Henry  Irving's  career.  It  was  said 
that  at  Bristol  one  night,  when  Mr.  Irving,  as  Hamlet, 
"  took  his  call "  after  the  first  act,  a  man  turned  to  his 
neighbour  in  the  pit  and  said,  "  Can  you  tell  me,  sir,  does 
that  young  man  appear  much  in  this  play?"  His  neighbour 
informed  him  that  Hamlet  was  rather  largely  concerned  in 
the  action,  whereupon  the  inquirer  remarked,  "  Oh  1  Then 
I'm  off!" 


160  PLAY-MAKING 

per  of  an  audience),  and  also  a  percentage  of  adult 
ignoramuses.  And  if  this  be  so  in  the  case  of 
plays  which  have  held  the  stage  for  generations, 
are  studied  in  schools,  and  are  every  day  cited 
as  matters  of  common  knowledge,  how  much  more 
certain  may  we  be  that  even  the  most  popular 
modern  play  will  have  to  appeal  night  after  night 
to  a  considerable  number  of  people  who  have  no 
previous  acquaintance  with  either  its  story  or  its 
characters!  The  playwright  may  absolutely  count 
on  having  to  make  such  an  appeal;  but  he  must 
remember  at  the  same  time  that  he  can  by  no 
means  count  on  keeping  any  individual  effect,  more 
especially  any  notable  trick  or  device,  a  secret  from 
the  generality  of  his  audience.  Mr.  J.  M.  Barrie 
(to  take  a  recent  instance)  sedulously  concealed, 
throughout  the  greater  part  of  Little  Mary,  what 
was  meant  by  that  ever-recurring  expression,  and 
probably  relied  to  some  extent  on  an  effect  of 
amused  surprise  when  the  disclosure  was  made. 
On  the  first  night,  the  effect  came  off  happily 
enough;  but  on  subsequent  nights,  there  would 
rarely  be  a  score  of  people  in  the  house  who  did 
not  know  the  secret.  The  great  majority  might 
know  nothing  else  about  the  play,  but  that  they 
knew.  Similarly,  in  the  case  of  any  mechanical 
true,  as  the  French  call  it,  or  feat  of  theatrical 
sleight-of-hand,  it  is  futile  to  trust  to  its  taking 
unawares  any  audience  after  the  first.  Nine-tenths 
of  all  subsequent  audiences  are  sure  to  be  on  the 
look-out  for  it,  and  to  know,  or  think  they  know, 


"CURIOSITY"  AND  "  INTEREST "      161 

"  how  it 's  done."  l  These  are  the  things  which 
theatrical  gossip,  printed  and  oral,  most  industri- 
ously disseminates.  The  fine  details  of  a  plot  are 
much  less  easily  conveyed  and  less  likely  to  be 
remembered. 

To  sum  up  this  branch  of  the  argument:  how- 
ever oft-repeated  and  much-discussed  a  play  may 
be,  the  playwright  must  assume  that  in  every 
audience  there  will  be  an  appreciable  number  of 
persons  who  know  practically  nothing  about  it,  and 
whose  enjoyment  will  depend,  like  that  of  the 
first-night  audience,  on  the  skill  with  which  he 
develops  his  story.  On  the  other  hand,  he  can 
never  rely  on  taking  an  audience  by  surprise  at 
any  particular  point.  The  class  of  effect  which 
depends  on  surprise  is  precisely  the  class  of  effect 
which  is  certain  to  be  discounted.2 

We  come  now  to  a  third  reason  why  a  play- 
wright is  bound  to  assume  that  the  audience  to 
which  he  addresses  himself  has  no  previous  knowl- 
edge of  his  fable.  It  is  simply  that  no  other 
assumption  has,  or  can  have,  any  logical  basis. 
If  the  audience  is  not  to  be  conceived  as  ignorant, 
how  much  is  it  to  be  assumed  to  know?  There 
is  clearly  no  possible  answer  to  this  question,  ex- 

1  If  it  be  well  done,   it  may  remain  highly  effective  in 
spite  of  being  discounted  by  previous  knowledge.     For  in- 
stance, the  clock-trick  in  Raffles  was  none  the  less  amusing 
because  every  one  was  on  the  look-out  for  it. 

2  The  question  whether  it  is  ever  politic  for  a  playwright 
to  keep  a  secret  from  his  audience  is  discussed  elsewhere. 
What  I  have  here  in  mind  is  not  an  ordinary  secret,  but  a 
more  or  less  tricky  effect  of  surprise. 


1 62  PLAY-MAKING 

cept  a  purely  arbitrary  one,  having  no  relation  to 
the  facts.  In  any  audience  after  the  first,  there 
will  doubtless  be  a  hundred  degrees  of  knowledge 
and  of  ignorance.  Many  people  will  know  nothing 
at  all  about  the  play;  some  people  will  have  seen 
or  read  it  yesterday,  and  will  thus  know  all  there 
is  to  know;  while  between  these  extremes  there 
will  be  every  variety  of  clearness  or  vagueness  of 
knowledge.  Some  people  will  have  read  and  re- 
membered a  detailed  newspaper  notice ;  others  will 
have  read  the  same  notice  and  forgotten  almost  all 
of  it.  Some  will  have  heard  a  correct  and  vivid 
account  of  the  play,  others  a  vague  and  misleading 
summary.  It  would  be  absolutely  impossible  to 
enumerate  all  the  degrees  of  previous  knowledge 
which  are  pretty  certain  to  be  represented  in  an 
average  audience;  and  to  which  degree  of  knowl- 
edge is  the  playwright  to  address  himself  ?  If  he  is 
to  have  any  firm  ground  under  his  feet,  he  must 
clearly  adopt  the  only  logical  course,  and  address 
himself  to  a  spectator  assumed  to  have  no  previous 
knowledge  whatever.  To  proceed  on  any  other 
assumption  would  not  only  be  to  ignore  the  all- 
powerful  first-night  audience,  but  to  plunge  into 
a  veritable  morass  of  inconsistencies,  dubieties  and 
slovenlinesses. 

These  considerations,  however,  have  not  yet 
taken  us  to  the  heart  of  the  matter.  We  have 
seen  that  the  dramatist  has  no  rational  course 
open  to  him  but  to  assume  complete  ignorance  in 
his  audience;  but  we  have  also  seen  that,  as  a 


"CURIOSITY"  AND  "INTEREST"      163 

matter  of  fact,  only  one  audience  will  be  entirely 
in  this  condition,  and  that,  the  more  successful 
the  play  is,  the  more  widely  will  subsequent  audi- 
ences tend  to  depart  from  it.  Does  it  not  follow 
that  interest  of  plot,  interest  of  curiosity  as  to 
coming  events,  is  at  best  an  evanescent  factor  in 
a  play's  attractiveness  —  of  a  certain  importance, 
no  doubt,  on  the  first  night,  but  less  and  less  effi- 
cient the  longer  the  play  holds  the  stage? 

In  a  sense,  this  is  undoubtedly  true.  We  see 
every  day  that  a  mere  story-play  —  a  play  which 
appeals  to  us  solely  by  reason  of  the  adroit  stimu- 
lation and  satisfaction  of  curiosity  —  very  rapidly 
exhausts  its  success.  No  one  cares  to  see  it  a 
second  time;  and  spectators  who  happen  to  have 
read  the  plot  in  advance,  find  its  attraction  dis- 
counted even  on  a  first  hearing.  But  if  we  jump 
to  the  conclusion  that  the  skilful  marshalling  and 
development  of  the  story  is  an  unimportant  detail, 
which  matters  little  when  once  the  first-night  ordeal 
is  past,  we  shall  go  very  far  astray.  Experience 
shows  us  that  dramatic  interest  is  entirely  distinct 
from  mere  curiosity,  and  survives  when  curiosity 
is  dead.  Though  a  skilfully-told  story  is  not  of 
itself  enough  to  secure  long  life  for  a  play,  it 
materially  and  permanently  enhances  the  attrac- 
tions of  a  play  which  has  other  and  higher  claims 
to  longevity.  Character,  poetry,  philosophy,  atmos- 
phere, are  all  very  good  in  their  way;  but  they 
all  show  to  greater  advantage  by  aid  of  a  well- 
ordered  fable.  In  a  picture,  I  take  it,  drawing  is 


1 64  PLAY-MAKING 

not  everything ;  but  drawing  will  always  count  for 
much. 

This  separation  of  interest  from  curiosity  is 
partly  explicable  by  one  very  simple  reflection. 
However  well  we  may  know  a  play  beforehand, 
we  seldom  know  it  by  heart  or  nearly  by  heart ; 
so  that,  though  we  may  anticipate  a  development 
in  general  outline,  we  do  not  clearly  foresee  the 
ordering  of  its  details,  which,  therefore,  may  give 
us  almost  the  same  sort  of  pleasure  that  it  gave  us 
when  the  story  was  new  to  us.  Most  playgoers 
will,  I  think,  bear  me  out  in  saying  that  we  con- 
stantly find  a  great  scene  or  act  to  be  in  reality 
richer  in  invention  and  more  ingenious  in  arrange- 
ment than  we  remembered  it  to  be. 

We  come,  now,  to  another  point  that  must  not 
be  overlooked.  It  needs  no  subtle  introspection 
to  assure  us  that  we,  the  audience,  do  our  own 
little  bit  of  acting,  and  instinctively  place  ourselves 
at  the  point  of  view  of  a  spectator  _be fore  whose 
e^esjihe  drama  isunrolling  itself  for  the  .first  time- 
If  the  play  has  any  richness  of  Texture,  we  have 
many  sensations  that  he  cannot  have.  We  are 
conscious  of  ironies  and  subtleties  which  neces- 
sarily escape  him,  or  which  he  can  but  dimly  di- 
vine. But  in  regard  to  the  actual  development  of 
the  story,  we  imagine  ourselves  back  into  his  con- 
dition of  ignorance,  with  this  difference,  that  we 
can  more  fully  appreciate  the  dramatist's  skill,  and 
more  clearly  resent  his  clumsiness  or  slovenliness. 
Our  sensations,  in  short,  are  not  simply  conditioned 


"CURIOSITY"  AND  "INTEREST"      165 

by  our  knowledge  or  ignorance  of  what  is  to  come. 
The  mood  of  dramatic  receptivity  is  a  complex 
one.  We  instinctively  and  without  any  effort  re- 
member that  the  dramatist  is  bound  by  the  rules 
of  the  game,  or,  in  other  words,  by  the  inherent 
conditions  of  his  craft,  to  unfold  his  tale  before 
an  audience  to  which  it  is  unknown;  and  it  is 
with  implicit  reference  to  these  conditions  that  we 
enjoy  and  appreciate  his  skill.  Even  the  most  un- 
sophisticated audience  realizes  in  some  measure 
that  the  playwright  is  an  artist  presenting  a  picture 
of  life  under  such-and-such  assumptions  and  limi- 
tations, and  appraises  his  skill  by  its  own  vague 
and  instinctive  standards.  As  our  culture  in- 
creases, we  more  and  more  consistently  adopt  this 
attitude,  and  take  pleasure  in  a  playwright's  mar- 
shalling of  material  in  proportion  to  its  absolute 
skill,  even  if  that  skill  no  longer  produces  its  direct 
and  pristine  effect  upon  us.  In  many  cases,  in- 
deed, our  pleasure  consists  of  a  delicate  blending 
of  surprise  with  realized  anticipation.  We  fore- 
saw, and  are  pleased  to  recognize,  the  art  of  the 
whole  achievement,  while  details  which  had  grown 
dim  to  us  give  us  each  its  little  thrill  of  fresh 
admiration.  Regarded  in  this  aspect,  a  great  play 
is  like  a  great  piece  of  music:  we  can  hear  it  again 
and  again  with  ever-new  realization  of  its  subtle 
beauties,  its  complex  harmonies,  and  with  unfail- 
ing interest  in  the  merits  and  demerits  of  each 
particular  rendering. 

But  we  must  look  deeper  than  this  if  we  would 


166  PLAY-MAKING 

fully  understand  the  true  nature  of  dramatic  in- 
terest. The  last  paragraph  has  brought  us  to  the 
verge  of  the  inmost  secret,  but  we  have  yet  to 
take  the  final  step.  We  have  yet  to  realize  that, 
in  truly  great  drama,  the  foreknowledge  possessed 
by  the  audience  is  not  a  disadvantage  with  certain 
incidental  mitigations  and  compensations,  but  is 
the  source  of  the  highest  pleasure  which  the  theatre 
is  capable  of  affording  us.  In  order  to  illustrate 
my  meaning,  I  propose  to  analyse  a  particular 
scene,  not,  certainly,  among  the  loftiest  in  dramatic 
literature,  but  particularly  suited  to  my  purpose, 
inasmuch  as  it  is  familiar  to  every  one,  and  at  the 
same  time  full  of  the  essential  qualities  of  drama. 
I  mean  the  Screen  Scene  in  The  School  for  Scandal. 
In  her  "  English  Men  of  Letters  "  volume  on 
Sheridan,  Mrs.  Oliphant  discusses  this  scene. 
Speaking  in  particular  of  the  moment  at  which 
the  screen  is  overturned,  revealing  Lady  Teazle 
behind  it,  she  says  — 

"  It  would  no  doubt  have  been  higher  art  could 
the  dramatist  have  deceived  his  audience  as  well  as  the 
personages  of  the  play,  and  made  us  also  parties  in 
the  surprise  of  the  discovery." 

There  could  scarcely  be  a  completer  reversal  of 
the  truth  than  this  "  hopeless  comment,"  as  Pro- 
fessor Brander  Matthews  has  justly  called  it.  The 
whole  effect  of  the  long  and  highly-elaborated 
scene  depends  upon  our  knowledge  that  Lady 
Teazle  is  behind  the  screen.  Had  the  audience 


"CURIOSITY"  AND  "INTEREST"      167 

either  not  known  that  there  was  anybody  there,  or 
supposed  it  to  be  the  "  little  French  milliner," 
where  would  have  been  the  breathless  interest  which 
has  held  us  through  a  whole  series  of  preceding 
scenes?  When  Sir  Peter  reveals  to  Joseph  his 
generous  intentions  towards  his  wife,  the  point 
lies  in  the  fact  that  Lady  Teazle  overhears;  and 
this  is  doubly  the  case  when  he  alludes  to  Joseph 
as  a  suitor  for  the  hand  of  Maria.  So,  too,  with 
the  following  scene  between  Joseph  and  Charles; 
in  itself  it  would  be  flat  enough;  the  fact  that 
Sir  Peter  is  listening  lends  it  a  certain  piquancy; 
but  this  is  ten  times  multiplied  by  the  fact  that 
Lady  Teazle,  too,  hears  all  that  passes.  When 
Joseph  is  called  from  the  room  by  the  arrival  of 
the  pretended  Old  Stanley,  there  would  be  no  in- 
terest in  his  embarrassment  if  we  believed  the 
person  behind  the  screen  to  be  the  French  milliner. 
And  when  Sir  Peter  yields  to  the  temptation  to  let 
Charles  into  the  secret  of  his  brother's  frailty,  and 
we  feel  every  moment  more  certain  that  the  screen 
will  be  overthrown,  where  would  be  the  excite- 
ment, the  tension,  if  we  did  not  know  who  was 
behind  it?  The  real  drama,  in  fact,  passes  behind 
the  screen.  It  lies  in  the  terror,  humiliation,  and 
disillusionment  which  we  know  to  be  coursing  each 
ether  through  Lady  Teazle's  soul.  And  all  this 
Mrs.  Oliphant  would  have  sacrificed  for  a  single 
moment  of  crude  surprise ! 

Now  let  us  hear  Professor  Matthews's  analysis 
of  the  effect  of  the  scene.    He  says :  — 


i68  PLAY-MAKING 

"  The  playgoer's  interest  is  really  not  so  much  as 
to  what  is  to  happen  as  the  way  in  which  this  event 
is  going  to  affect  the  characters  involved.  He  thinks 
it  likely  enough  that  Sir  Peter  will  discover  that 
Lady  Teazle  is  paying  a  visit  to  Joseph  Surface ;  but 
what  he  is  really  anxious  to  learn  is  the  way  the  hus- 
band will  take  it.  What  will  Lady  Teazle  have  to 
say  when  she  is  discovered  where  she  has  no  busi- 
ness to  be  ?  How  will  Sir  Peter  receive  her  excuses  ? 
What  will  the  effect  be  on  the  future  conduct  of  both 
husband  and  wife?  These  are  the  questions  which 
the  spectators  are  eager  to  have  answered." 

This  is  an  admirable  exposition  of  the  frame  of 
mind  of  the  Drury  Lane  audience  of  May  8,  1777, 
who  first  saw  the  screen  overturned.  But  in  the 
thousands  of  audiences  who  have  since  witnessed 
the  play,  how  many  individuals,  on  an  average,  had 
any  doubt  as  to  what  Lady  Teazle  would  have  to 
say,  and  how  Sir  Peter  would  receive  her  excuses  ? 
It  would  probably  be  safe  to  guess  that,  for  a 
century  past,  two-thirds  of  every  audience  have 
clearly  foreknown  the  outcome  of  the  situation. 
Professor  Matthews  himself  has  edited  Sheridan's 
plays,  and  probably  knows  The  School  for  Scandal 
almost  by  heart;  yet  we  may  be  pretty  sure  that 
any  reasonably  good  performance  of  the  Screen 
Scene  will  to-day  give  him  pleasure  not  so  very 
much  inferior  to  that  which  he  felt  the  first  time 
he  saw  it.  In  this  pleasure,  it  is  manifest  that 
mere  curiosity  as  to  the  immediate  and  subsequent 
conduct  of  Sir  Peter  and  Lady  Teazle  can  have 


"CURIOSITY"  AND  "INTEREST"      169 

no  part.  There  is  absolutely  no  question  which 
Professor  Matthews,  or  any  playgoer  who  shares 
his  point  of  view,  is  "  eager  to  have  answered." 

Assuming,  then,  that  we  are  all  familiar  with 
the  Screen  Scene,  and  assuming  that  we,  neverthe- 
less, take  pleasure  in  seeing  it  reasonably  well 
acted,1  let  us  try  to  discover  of  what  elements 
that  pleasure  is  composed.  It  is,  no  doubt,  some- 
what complex.  For  one  thing,  we  have  pleasure  in 
meeting  old  friends.  Sir  Peter,  Lady  Teazle, 
Charles,  even  Joseph,  are  agreeable  creatures  who 
have  all  sorts  of  pleasant  associations  for  us. 
Again,  we  love  to  encounter  not  only  familiar 
characters  but  familiar  jokes.  Like  Goldsmith's 
Diggory,  we  can  never  help  laughing  at  the  story 
of  "  ould  Grouse  in  the  gunroom."  The  best  order 
of  dramatic  wit  does  not  become  stale,  but  rather 
grows  upon  us.  We  relish  it  at  least  as  much  at 
the  tenth  repetition  as  at  the  first.  But  while  these 
considerations  may  partly  account  for  the  pleasure 
we  take  in  seeing  the  play  as  a  whole,  they  do  not 
explain  why  the  Screen  Scene  in  particular  should 
interest  and  excite  us.  Another  source  of  pleasure, 
as  before  indicated,  may  be  reriewe4  rrrngnitn'on 
of  the  ingenuity  with  which  tne  scene  is  pieced 
together.  However  familiar  we  may  be  with  it, 
short  of  actually  knowing  it  by  heart,  we  do  not 


1  The  pleasure  received  from  exceptionally  good  acting 
is,  of  course,  a  different  matter.  I  assume  that  the  acting 
is  merely  competent  enough  to  pass  muster  without  irritat- 
ing us,  and  so  distracting  our  attention. 


170  PLAY-MAKING 


recall  the  details  of  its  dovetailing,  and  it  is  a 
delight  to  realize  afresh  the  neatness  of  the  manipu- 
lation by  which  the  tension  is  heightened  from 
speech  to  speech  and  from  incident  to  incident. 
If  it  be  objected  that  this  is  a  pleasure  which  the 
critic  alone  is  capable  of  experiencing,  I  venture 
to  disagree.  The  most  unsophisticated  playgoer 
feels  the  effect  of  neat  workmanship,  though  he 
may  not  be  able  to  put  his  satisfaction  into  words. 
It  is  evident,  however,  that  the  mere  intellectual 
recognition  of  fine  workmanship  is  not  sufficient 
to  account  for  the  emotions  with  which  we  witness 
the  Screen  Scene.  A  similar,  though,  of  course, 
not  quite  identical,  effect  is  produced  by  scenes 
of  the  utmost  simplicity,  in  which  there  is 
no  room  for  delicacy  of  dovetailing  or  neatness 
of  manipulation. 

Where,  then,  are  we  to  seek  for  the  fundamental 
constituent  in  dramatic  interest,  as  distinct  from 
mere  curiosity?  Perhaps  Mrs.  Oliphant's  glaring 
error  may  put  us  on  the  track  of  the  truth.  Mrs. 
Oliphant  thought  that  Sheridan  would  have  shown 
higher  art  had  he  kept  the  audience,  as  well  as  Sir 
Peter  and  Charles,  ignorant  of  Lady  Teazle's  pres- 
ence behind  the  screen.  But  this,  as  we  saw,  is 
precisely  the  reverse  of  the  truth:  the  whole  in- 
terest of  the  scene  arises  from  our  knowledge  of 
Lady  Teazle's  presence.  Had  Sheridan  fallen  into 
Mrs.  Oliphant's  mistake,  the  little  shock  of  surprise 
which  the  first-night  audience  would  have  felt  when 
the  screen  was  thrown  down  would  have  been  no 


"CURIOSITY"  AND  "INTEREST"      171 

compensation  at  all  for  the  comparative  tameness 
and  pointlessness  of  the  preceding  passages.  Thus 
we  see  that  the  greater  part  of  our  pleasure  arises 
precisely  from  the  fact  that  we  know  what  Sir 
Peter  and  Charles  do  not  know,  or,  in  other  words, 
that  we  have  a  clear  vision  of  all  the  circumstances, 
relations,  and  implications  of  a  certain  conjuncture 
of  affairs,  in  which  two,  at  least,  of  the  persons 
concerned  are  ignorantly  and  blindly  moving 
towards  issues  of  which  they  do  not  dream.  We 
are,  in  fact,  in  the  position  of  superior  intelligences 
contemplating,  with  miraculous  clairvoyance,  the 
stumblings  and  fumblings  of  poor  blind  mortals 
straying  through  the  labyrinth  of  life.  Our  seat 
in  the  theatre  is  like  a  throne  on  the  Epicurean 
Olympus,  whence  we  can  view  with  perfect  in- 
telligence, but  without  participation  or  responsi- 
bility, the  intricate  reactions  of  human  destiny. 
And  this  sense  of  superiority  does  not  pall  upon 
us.  When  Othello  comes  on  the  scene,  radiant 
and  confident  in  Desdemona's  love,  our  knowledge 
of  the  fate  awaiting  him  makes  him  a  hundred 
times  more  interesting  than  could  any  mere  curi- 
osity as  to  what  was  about  to  happen.  It  is  our 
prevision  of  Nora's  exit  at  the  end  of  the  last 
act  that  lends  its  dramatic  poignancy  to  her  en- 
trance at  the  beginning  of  the  first 

There  is  nothing  absolutely  new  in  this  theory.1 

1  I  myself  expressed  it  in  slightly  different  terms  nearly 
ten  years  ago.  "  Curiosity,"  I  said,  "  is  the  accidental  relish 
of  a  single  night;  whereas  the  essential  and  abiding  pleas- 


172  PLAY-MAKING 

"  The  irony  of  fate  "  has  long  been  recognized 
as  one  of  the  main  elements  of  dramatic  effect. 
It  has  been  especially  dwelt  upon  in  relation  to 
Greek  tragedy,  of  which  the  themes  were  all  known 
in  advance  even  to  first-day  "  audiences.  We  should 
take  but  little  interest  in  seeing  the  purple  carpet 
spread  for  Agamemnon's  triumphal  entry  into  his 
ancestral  halls,  if  it  were  not  for  our  foreknowl- 
edge of  the  net  and  the  axe  prepared  for  him. 
But,  familiar  as  is  this  principle,  I  am  not  aware 
that  it  has  hitherto  been  extended,  as  I  suggest 
that  it  should  be,  to  cover  the  whole  field  of  dra- 
matic interest.  I  suggest  that  the  theorists  have 
hitherto  dwelt  far  too  much  on  curiosity  1  —  which 
may  be  defined  as  the  interest  of  ignorance  —  and 
far  too  little  on  the  feeling  of  superiority,  of  clair- 
voyance, with  which  we  contemplate  a  foreknown 

ure  of  the  theatre  lies  in  foreknowledge.  In  relation  to  the 
characters  in  the  drama,  the  audience  are  as  gods  looking 
before  and  after.  Sitting  in  the  theatre,  we  taste,  for  a 
moment,  the  glory  of  omniscience.  With  vision  unsealed, 
we  watch  the  gropings  of  purblind  mortals  after  happiness, 
and  smile  at  their  stumblings,  their  blunders,  their  futile 
quests,  their  misplaced  exultations,  their  groundless  panics. 
To  keep  a  secret  from  us  is  to  reduce  us  to  their  level,  and 
deprive  us  of  our  clairvoyant  aloofness.  There  may  be  a 
pleasure  in  that  too;  we  may  join  with  zest  in  the  game  of 
blind-man's-buff;  but  the  theatre  is  in  its  essence  a  place 
where  we  are  privileged  to  take  off  the  bandage  we  wear  in 
daily  life,  and  to  contemplate,  with  laughter  or  with  tears, 
the  blindfold  gambols  of  our  neighbours." 

1  Here  an  acute  critic  writes :  "  On  the  whole  I  agree ; 
but  I  do  think  there  is  dramatic  interest  to  be  had  out  of 
curiosity,  through  the  identification,  so  to  speak,  of  the  audi- 
ence with  the  discovering  persons  on  the  stage.  It  is  an 
interest  of  sympathy,  not  to  be  despised,  rather  than  an  in- 
terest of  actual  curiosity." 


"CURIOSITY"  AND  "INTEREST"      173 

action,  whether  of  a  comic  or  of  a  tragic  cast. 
Of  course  the  action  must  be,  essentially  if  not  in 
every  detail,  true  to  nature.  We  can  derive  no 
sense  of  superiority  from  our  foreknowledge  of 
an  arbitrary  or  preposterous  action;  and  that,  I 
take  it,  is  the  reason  why  a  good  many  plays  have 
an  initial  success  of  curiosity,  but  cease  to  attract 
when  their  plot  becomes  familiar.  Again,  we  take 
no  pleasure  in  foreknowing  the  fate  of  wholly  un- 
interesting people;  which  is  as  much  as  to  say 
that  character  is  indispensable  to  enduring  interest 
in  drama.  With  these  provisos,  I  suggest  a  re- 
construction of  our  theories  of  dramatic  interest, 
in  which  mere  first-night  curiosity  shall  be  relegated 
to  the  subordinate  place  which  by  right  belongs 
to  it. 

Nevertheless,  we  must  come  back  to  the  point 
that  there  is  always  the  ordeal  of  the  first  night 
to  be  faced,  and  that  the  plays  are  comparatively 
few  which  have  lived-down  a  bad  first-nignt.  It 
is  true  that  specifically  first-night  merit  is  a  trivial 
matter  compared  with  what  may  be  called  thou- 
sandth-performance merit;  but  it  is  equally  true 
that  there  is  no  inconsistency  between  the  two 
orders  of  merit,  and  that  a  play  will  never  be 
less  esteemed  on  its  thousandth  performance  for 
having  achieved  a  conspicuous  first-night  success. 
The  practical  lesson  which  seems  to  emerge  from 
these  considerations  is  that  a  wise  theatrical  policy 
would  seek  to  diminish  the  all-importance  of  the 
first-night,  and  to  give  a  play  a  greater  chance  of 


^ 


174  PLAY-MAKING 

recovery  than  it  has  under  present  conditions,  from 
the  depressing  effect  of  an  inauspicious  production. 
This  is  the  more  desirable  as  its  initial  misadven- 
ture may  very  likely  be  due  to  external  and  for- 
tuitous circumstances,  wholly  unconnected  with  its 
inherent  qualities. 

At  the  same  time,  we  are  bound  to  recognize 
that,  from  the  very  nature  of  the  case,  our  present 
inquiry  must  be  far  more  concerned  with  first- 
night  than  with  thousandth-performance  merit. 
Craftsmanship  can,  within  limits,  be  acquired, 
genius  cannot;  and  it  is  craftsmanship  that  pilots 
us  through  the  perils  of  the  first  performance, 
genius  that  carries  us  on  to  the  apotheosis  of  the 
thousandth.  Therefore,  our  primary  concern  must 
be  with  the  arousing  and  sustaining  of  curiosity, 
though  we  should  never  forget  that  it  is  only  a 
means  to  the  ultimate  enlistment  of  the  higher  and 
more  abiding  forms  of  interest. 


FORESHADOWING,   NOT   FORESTALLING 

WE  return  now  to  the  point  at  which  the  fore- 
going disquisition  —  it  is  not  a  digression  — 
became  necessary.  We  had  arrived  at  the  general 
principle  that  the  playwright's  chief  aim  in  his 
first  act  ought  to  be  to  arouse  and  carry  forward 
the  interest  of  the  audience.  This  may  seem  a 
tolerably  obvious  statement;  but  it  is  worth  while 
to  examine  a  little  more  closely  into  its  implications. 

As  to  arousing  the  interest  of  the  audience,  it 
is  clear  that  very  little  specific  advice  can  be  given. 
One  can  only  say,  "  Find  an  interesting  theme, 
state  its  preliminaries  clearly  and  crisply,  and  let 
issue  be  joined  without  too  much  delay."  There 
can  be  no  rules  for  finding  an  interesting  theme, 
any  more  than  for  catching  the  Blue  Bird.  At  a 
later  stage  we  may  perhaps  attempt  a  summary 
enumeration  of  themes  which  are  not  interesting, 
which  have  exhausted  any  interest  they  ever  pos- 
sessed, and  "  repay  careful  avoidance."  But  such 
an  enumeration  would  be  out  of  place  here,  where 
we  are  studying  principles  of  form  apart  from 
details  of  matter. 

The  arousing  of  interest,  however,  is  one  thing, 
the  carrying- for  ward  of  interest  is  another;  and  on 


176  PLAY-MAKING 

the  latter  point  there  are  one  or  two  things  that 
may  profitably  be  said.  Each  act,  as  we  have  seen, 
should  consist  of,  or  at  all  events  contain,  a  subordi- 
nate crisis,  contributory  to  the  main  crisis  of  the 
play ;  and  the  art  of  act-construction  lies  in  giving 
to  each  act  an  individuality  andjriterest  of  its  own, 
without  so  rounding  it  off  as  to  obscure  even  for 
a  moment  its  subsidiary,  and,  in  the  case  of  the 
first  act,  its  introductory,  relation  to  the  whole. 
This  is  a  point  which  many  dramatists  ignore  or 
undervalue.  Very  often,  when  the  curtain  falls  on 
a  first  or  a  second  act,  one  says,  "  This  is  a  fairly 
good  act  in  itself;  but  whither  does  it  lead?  what 
is  to  come  of  it  all?  "  It  awakens  no  definite  antici- 
pation, and  for  two  pins  one  would  take  up  one's 
hat  and  go  home.  The  author  has  neglected  the  art 
of  carrying-forward  the  interest. 

It  is  curious  to  note  that  in  the  most  unsophisti- 
cated forms  of  melodrama  this  art  is  deliberately 
ignored.  In  plays  of  the  type  of  The  Worst 
Woman  in  London,  it  appears  to  be  an  absolute 
canon  of  art  that  every  act  must  have  a  "  happy 
ending "  —  that  the  curtain  must  always  fall  on 
the  hero,  or,  preferably,  the  comic  man,  in  an  atti- 
tude of  triumph,  while  the  villain  and  villainess 
cower  before  him  in  baffled  impotence.  We  have 
perfect  faith,  of  course,  that  the  villain  will  come 
up  smiling  in  the  next  act,  and  proceed  with  his 
nefarious  practices;  but,  for  the  moment,  virtue 
has  it  all  its  own  way.  This,  however,  is  a  very 
artless  formula  which  has  somehow  developed  of 


FORESHADOWING  177 

recent  years;  and  it  is  doubtful  whether  even  the 
audiences  to  which  these  plays  appeal  would  not 
in  reality  prefer  something  a  little  less  inept  in 
the  matter  of  construction.  As  soon  as  we  get 
above  this  level,  at  all  events,  the  fostering  of 
anticipation  becomes  a  matter  of  the  first  impor- 
tance. The  problem  is,  not  to  cut  short  the  spec- 
tator's interest,  or  to  leave  it  fluttering  at  a  loose  fi*; 
end,  but  to  provide  it  either  with  a  clearly-foreseen 
point  in  the  next  act  towards  which  it  can  reach 
onwards,  or  with  a  definite  enigma,  the  solution  of 
which  is  impatientjv  awaited.  In  general  terms,  a 
bridge  should  be  provided  between  one  act^  and  an- 
other,  along  whicfi  tfie  spectator's  miruF  cannot  but 
travel  with  eager  anticipation.  And  this  is  par- 
ticularly important,  or  particularly  apt  to  be  neg- 
lected, at  the  end  of  the  first  act.  At  a  later  jjQJnt, 
if  the  interest  does  not  naturally  and  inevitably 
carry^itselfjfor^nirifoe  case  is  hopeless  indeed. 

To  ifTustfate  what  is  meant  by  the  carrying- 
forward  of  interest,  let  me  cite  one  or  two  in- 
stances in  which  it  is  achieved  with  conspicuous 
success. 

In  Oscar  Wilde's  first  modern  comedy,  Lady 
Winder  mere's  Fan,  the  heroine,  Lady  Windermere, 
has  learnt  that  her  husband  has  of  late  been  seen 
to  call  very  frequently  at  the  house  of  a  certain 
Mrs.  Erlynne,  whom  nobody  knows.  Her  sus- 
picions thus  aroused,  she  searches  her  husband's 
desk,  discovers  a  private  and  locked  bank-book, 
cuts  it  open,  and  finds  that  one  large  cheque  after 


178  PLAY-MAKING 

another  has  been  drawn  in  favour  of  the  lady  in 
question.  At  this  inopportune  moment,  Lord 
Windermere  appears  with  a  request  that  Mrs. 
Erlynne  shall  be  invited  to  their  reception  that 
evening.  Lady  Windermere  indignantly  refuses, 
her  husband  insists,  and,  finally,  with  his  own  hand, 
fills  in  an  invitation-card  and  sends  it  by  messenger 
to  Mrs.  Erlynne.  Here  some  playwrights  might 
have  been  content  to  finish  the  act.  It  is  sufficiently 
evident  that  Lady  Windermere  will  not  submit  to 
the  apparent  insult,  and  that  something  exciting 
may  be  looked  for  at  the  reception  in  the  following 
act.  But  Oscar  Wilde  was  not  content  with  this 
vague  expectancy.  He  first  defined  it,  and  then 
he  underlined  the  definition,  in  a  perfectly  natural 
and  yet  ingenious  and  skilful  way.  The  day  hap- 
pens to  be  Lady  Windermere' s  birthday,  and  at 
the  beginning  of  the  act  her  husband  has  given 
her  a  beautiful  ostrich- feather  fan.  When  he  sends 
off  the  invitation,  she  turns  upon  him  and  says, 
"  If  that  woman  crosses  my  threshold,  I  shall  strike 
her  across  the  face  with  this  fan."  Here,  again, 
many  a  dramatist  might  be  content  to  bring  down 
his  curtain.  The  announcement  of  Lady  Winder- 
mere's  resolve  carries  forward  the  interest  quite 
clearly  enough  for  all  practical  purposes.  But 
even  this  did  not  satisfy  Wilde.  He  imagined  a 
refinement,  simple,  probable,  and  yet  immensely 
effective,  which  put  an  extraordinarily  keen  edge 
upon  the  expectancy  of  the  audience.  He  made 
Lady  Windermere  ring  for  her  butler,  and  say: 


FORESHADOWING  179 

"  Parker,  be  sure  you  pronounce  the  names  of  the 
guests  very  distinctly  to-night.  Sometimes  you 
speak  so  fast  that  I  miss  them.  I  am  particularly 
anxious  to  hear  the  names  quite  clearly,  so  as  to 
make  no  mistake."  I  well  remember  the  effect 
which  this  little  touch  produced  on  the  first  night. 
The  situation  was,  in  itself,  open  to  grave  objec- 
tions. There  is  no  plausible  excuse  for  Lord  Win- 
dermere's  obstinacy  in  forcing  Mrs.  Erlynne  upon 
his  wife,  and  risking  a  violent  scandal  in  order  to 
postpone  an  explanation  which  he  must  know  to 
be  ultimately  inevitable.  Though  one  had  not  as 
yet  learnt  the  precise  facts  of  the  case,  one  felt 
pretty  confident  that  his  lordship's  conduct  would 
scarcely  justify  itself.  But  interest  is  largely  inde- 
pendent of  critical  judgment,  and,  for  my  own 
part,  I  can  aver  that,  when  the  curtain  fell  on  the 
first  act,  a  five-pound  note  would  not  have  bribed 
me  to  leave  the  theatre  without  assisting  at  Lady 
Windermere's  reception  in  the  second  act.  That 
is  the  frame  of  mind  which  the  author  should  try 
to  beget  in  his  audience;  and  Oscar  Wilde,  then 
almost  a  novice,  had,  in  this  one  little  passage 
be^een~Xady^mdermere  and  the  butler,  shown 
himself  a  mliHeT''6T~the  ITrOTf 'dramatic  story- 
telling1. The  dramatist  has  higher  functions  than 
mere  story-telling;  but  this  is  fundamental,  and 
theTfrue  artist  is  the  last  to  despise  it.1 

1  That  great  story-teller,  Alexandre  Dumas  ptre,  chose 
a  straightforward  way  of  carrying  forward  the  interest  at 
the  end  of  the  first  act  of  Henri  III  el  sa  Cour.  The  Due 


180  PLAY-MAKING 

For  another  example  of  a  first  act  brought  to 
what  one  may  call  a  judiciously  tantalizing  con- 
clusion, I  turn  to  Mr.  R.  C.  Carton's  comedy 
Wheels  within  Wheels.  Lord  Eric  Chantrell  has 
just  returned  from  abroad  after  many  years'  ab- 
sence. He  drives  straight  to  the  bachelor  flat  of 
his  old  chum,  Egerton  Vartrey.  At  the  flat  he 
finds  only  his  friend's  valet.  Vartrey  himself  has 
been  summoned  to  Scotland  that  very  evening,  and 
the  valet  is  on  the  point  of  following  him.  He 
knows,  however,  that  his  master  would  wish  his 
old  friend  to  make  himself  at  home  in  the  flat; 
so  he  presently  goes  off,  leaving  the  newcomer  in- 
stalled for  the  night.  Lord  Eric  goes  to  the  bed- 
room to  change  his  clothes;  and,  the  stage  being 
thus  left  vacant,  we  hear  a  latch-key  turning  in 
the  outer  door.  A  lady  in  evening  dress  enters, 
goes  up  to  the  bureau  at  the  back  of  the  stage,  and 
calmly  proceeds  to  break  it  open  and  ransack  it. 
While  she  is  thus  burglariously  employed,  Lord 
Eric  enters,  and  cannot  refrain  from  a  slight  ex- 
pression of  surprise.  The  lady  takes  the  situation 
with  humorous  calmness,  they  fall  into  conversa- 
tion, and  it  is  manifest  that  at  every  word  Lord 
Eric  is  more  and  more  fascinated  by  the  fair 
house-breaker.  She  learns  who  he  is,  and  evi- 
dently knows  all  about  him;  but  she  is  careful 
to  give  him  no  inkling  of  her  own  identity.  At 

de  Guise,  insulted  by  Saint-Megrin,  beckons  to  his  hench- 
man and  says,  as  the  curtain  falls,  "  Qu'on  me  cherche  les 
memes  homines  qui  ont  assassine  Dugast! " 


FORESHADOWING  181 

last  she  takes  her  leave,  and  he  expresses  such  an 
eager  hope  of  being  allowed  to  renew  their  ac- 
quaintance, that  it  amounts  to  a  declaration  of  a 
peculiar  interest  in  her.  Thereupon  she  addresses 
him  to  this  effect :  "  Has  it  occurred  to  you  to 
wonder  how  I  got  into  your  friend's  rooms?  I 
will  show  you  how  "  —  and,  producing  the  latch- 
key, she  holds  it  up,  with  all  its  questionable  impli- 
cations, before  his  eyes.  Then  she  lays  it  on  the 
table,  says :  "  I  leave  you  to  draw  your  own  con- 
clusions "  —  and  departs.  A  better  opening  for  a 
light  social  comedy  could  scarcely  be  devised.  We 
have  no  difficulty  in  guessing  that  the  lady,  who  is 
not  quite  young,  and  has  clearly  a  strong  sense  of 
humour,  is  freakishly  turning  appearances  against 
herself,  by  way  of  throwing  a  dash  of  cold  water 
on  Lord  Eric's  sudden  flame  of  devotion.  But  we 
long  for  a  clear  explanation  of  the  whole  quaint 
little  episode;  and  here,  again,  no  reasonable  offer 
would  tempt  us  to  leave  the  theatre  before  our 
curiosity  is  satisfied.  The  remainder  of  the  play, 
though  amusing,  is  unfortunately  not  up  to  the  level 
of  the  first  act;  else  Wheels  within  Wheels  would 
be  a  little  classic  of  light  comedy. 

For  a  third  example  of  interest  carefully  carried 
forward,  I  turn  to  a  recent  Norwegian  play,  The 
Idyll,  by  Peter  Egge.  At  the  very  rise  of  the  cur- 
tain, we  find  Inga  Gar,  wife  of  an  author  and 
journalist,  Dr.  Gar,  reading,  with  evident  tokens 
of  annoyance  and  distaste,  a  new  book  of  poems  by 
one  Rolfe  Ringve.  Before  her  marriage,  Inga  was 


182  PLAY-MAKING 

an  actress  of  no  great  talent;  Ringve  made  him- 
self conspicuous  by  praising  her  far  beyond  her 
merits ;  and  when,  at  last,  an  engagement  between 
them  was  announced,  people  shrugged  their  shoul- 
ders and  said :  "  They  are  going  to  regularize  the 
situation."  As  a  matter  of  fact  (of  this  we  have 
early  assurance),  though  Ringve  has  been  her 
ardent  lover,  Inga  has  neither  loved  him  nor  been 
his  mistress.  Ringve  being  called  abroad,  she  has, 
during  his  absence,  broken  off  her  engagement  to 
him,  and  has  then,  about  a  year  before  the  play 
opens,  married  Dr.  Gar,  to  whom  she  is  devoted. 
While  Gar  is  away  on  a  short  lecture  tour,  Ringve 
has  published  the  book  of  love-poems  which  we 
find  her  reading.  They  are  very  remarkable  poems ; 
they  have  already  made  a  great  stir  in  the  literary 
world;  and  interest  is  all  the  keener  for  the  fact 
that  they  are  evidently  inspired  by  his  passion  for 
Inga,  and  are  couched  in  such  a  tone  of  intimacy 
as  to  create  a  highly  injurious  impression  of  the 
relations  between  them.  Gar,  having  just  come 
home,  has  no  suspicion  of  the  nature  of  the  book ; 
and  when  an  editor,  who  cherishes  a  grudge  against 
him,  conceives  the  malicious  idea  of  asking  him  to 
review  Ringve's  masterpiece,  he  consents  with 
alacrity.  One  or  two  small  incidents  have  in  the 
meantime  shown  us  that  there  is  a  little  rift  in 
the  idyllic  happiness  of  Inga  and  Gar,  arising  from 
her  inveterate  habit  of  telling  trifling  fibs  to  avoid 
facing  the  petty  annoyances  of  life.  For  instance, 
when  Gar  asks  her  casually  whether  she  has  read 


FORESHADOWING  183 

Ringve's  poems,  a  foolish  denial  slips  out,  though 
she  knows  that  the  cut  pages  of  the  book  will  give 
her  the  lie.  These  incidents  point  to  a  state  of 
unstable  equilibrium  in  the  relations  between  hus- 
band and  wife;  wherefore,  when  we  see  Gar,  at 
the  end  of  the  act,  preparing  to  read  Ringve's 
poems,  our  curiosity  is  very  keen  as  to  how  he  will 
take  them.  We  feel  the  next  hour  to  be  big  with 
fate  for  these  two  people;  and  we  long  for  the 
curtain  to  rise  again  upon  the  threatened  household. 
The  fuse  has  been  fired;  we  are  all  agog  for  the 
explosion. 

In  Herr  Egge's  place,  I  should  have  been  inclined 
to  have  dropped  my  curtain  upon  Gar,  with  the 
light  of  his  reading-lamp  full  upon  him,  in  the 
act  of  opening  the  book,  and  then  to  have  shown 
him,  at  the  beginning  of  the  second  act,  in  exactly 
the  same  position.  With  more  delicate  art,  per- 
haps, the  author  interposes  a  little  domestic  incident 
at  the  end  of  the  first  act,  while  leaving  it  clearly 
impressed  on  our  minds  that  the  reading  of  the 
poems  is  only  postponed  by  a  few  minutes.  That 
is  the  essential  point:  the  actual  moment  upon 
which  the  curtain  falls  is  of  minor  importance. 
What  is  of  vast  importance,  on  the  other  hand,  is 
that  the  expectation  of  the  audience  should  not 
be  baffled,  and  that  the  curtain  should  rise  upon 
the  immediate  sequel  to  the  reading  of  the  poems. 
This  is,  in  the  exact  sense  of  the  words,  a  sc&ne  a 
faire  —  an  obligatory  scene.  The  author  has 
aroused  in  us  a  reasonable  expectation  of  it,  and 


184  PLAY-MAKING 

should  he  choose  to  balk  us  —  to  raise  his  cur- 
tain, say,  a  week,  or  a  month,  later  —  we  should 
feel  that  we  had  been  trifled  with.  The  general 
theory  of  the  scene  a  faire  will  presently  come  up 
for  discussion.  In  the  meantime,  I  merely  make 
the  obvious  remark  that  it  is  worse  than  useless 
to  awaken  a  definite  expectation  in  the  breast  of 
the  audience,  and  then  to  disappoint  it.1 

The  works  of  Sir  Arthur  Pinero  afford  many 
examples  of  interest  very  skilfully  carried  forward. 
In  his  farces  —  let  no  one  despise  the  technical  les- 
sons to  be  learnt  from  a  good  farce  —  there  is 
always  an  adventure  afoot,  whose  development  we 
eagerly  anticipate.  When  the  curtain  falls  on  the 
first  act  of  The  Magistrate,  we  foresee  the  meeting 
of  all  the  characters  at  the  Hotel  des  Princes,  and 
are  impatient  to  assist  at  it.  In  The  Schoolmistress, 
we  would  not  for  worlds  miss  Peggy  Hesseltine's 
party,  which  we  know  awaits  us  in  Act  II.  An 
excellent  example,  of  a  more  serious  order,  is  to 
be  found  in  The  Benefit  of  the  Doubt.  When  poor 
Theo,  rebuffed  by  her  husband's  chilly  scepticism, 
goes  off  on  some  manifestly  harebrained  errand,  we 
divine,  as  do  her  relatives,  that  she  is  about  to 
commit  social  suicide  by  seeking  out  John  Alling- 


1  There  are  limits  to  the  validity  of  this  rule,  as  applied 
to  minor  incidents.  For  example,  it  may  sometimes  be  a 
point  of  art  to  lead  the  audience  to  expect  the  appearance 
of  one  person,  when  in  fact  another  is  about  to  enter.  But 
it  is  exceedingly  dangerous  to  baffle  the  carefully  fostered 
anticipation  of  an  important  scene.  See  Chapters  XVII 
and  XXI. 


FORESHADOWING  185 

ham;  and  we  feel  more  than  curiosity  as  to  the 
event  —  we  feel  active  concern,  almost  anxiety,  as 
though  our  own  personal  interests  were  involved. 
Our  anticipation  is  heightened,  too,  when  we  see 
Sir  Fletcher  Portwood  and  Mrs.  Cloys  set  off  upon 
her  track.  This  gives  us  a  definite  point  to  which 
to  look  forward,  while  leaving  the  actual  course  of 
events  entirely  undefined.  It  fulfils  one  of  the  great 
ends  of  craftsmanship,  in  foreshadowing  without 
forestalling  an  intensely  interesting  conjuncture  of 
affairs. 

I  have  laid  stress  on  the  importance  of  carrying 
forward  the  interest  of  the  audience  because  it  is 
a  detail  that  is  often  overlooked.  There  is,  as  a 
rule,  no  difficulty  in  the  matter,  always  assuming 
that  the  theme  be  not  inherently  devoid  of  interest. 
One  could  mention  many  plays  in  which  the  author 
has,  from  sheer  inadvertence,  failed  to  carry  for- 
ward the  interest  of  the  first  act,  though  a  very 
little  readjustment,  or  a  trifling  exercise  of  in- 
vention, would  have  enabled  him  to  do  so.  Pillars 
of  Society,  indeed,  may  be  taken  as  an  instance, 
though  not  a  very  flagrant  one.  Such  interest  as 
we  feel  at  the  end  of  the  first  act  is  vague  and  un- 
focussed.  We  are  sure  that  something  is  to  come 
of  the  return  of  Lona  and  Johan,  but  we  have  no 
inkling  as  to  what  that  something  may  be.  If  we 
guess  that  the  so-called  black  sheep  of  the  family 
will  prove  to  be  the  white  sheep,  it  is  only  because 
we  know  that  it  is  Ibsen's  habit  to  attack  respecta- 
bility and  criticize  accepted  moral  values  —  it  is 


186  PLAY-MAKING 

not  because  of  anything  that  he  has  told  us,  or 
hinted  to  us,  in  the  play  itself.  In  no  other  case 
does  he  leave  our  interest  at  such  a  loose  end 
as  in  this,  his  prentice-work  in  modern  drama.  In 
The  League  of  Youth,  an  earlier  play,  but  of  an 
altogether  lighter  type,  the  interest  is  much  more 
definitely  carried  forward  at  the  end  of  the  first 
act.  Stensgaard  has  attacked  Chamberlain  Brats- 
berg  in  a  rousing  speech,  and  the  Chamberlain  has 
been  induced  to  believe  that  the  attack  was  directed 
not  against  himself,  but  against  his  enemy  Monsen. 
Consequently  he  invites  Stensgaard  to  his  great 
dinner-party,  and  this  invitation  Stensgaard  re- 
gards as  a  cowardly  attempt  at  conciliation.  We 
clearly  see  a  crisis  looming  ahead,  when  this 
misunderstanding  shall  be  cleared  up ;  and  we  con- 
sequently look  forward  with  lively  interest  to  the 
dinner-party  of  the  second  act  —  which  ends,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  in  a  brilliant  scene  of  comedy. 

The  principle,  to  recapitulate,  is  simply  this:  a, 
good  first  act  should  jieyer  end  in  a  blank^  wall. 
There  shoukQQways  PB,  *  "lyindow  in  \\.  with  at 
least  a  glimpse  of  something  attractive  beyond. 
In  Pillars  of  Society  there  is  a  window,  indeed; 
but  it  is  of  ground  glass. 


BOOK  III 
THE   MIDDLE 


XI 
TENSION   AND   ITS   SUSPENSION 

TN  the  days  of  the  five-act  dogma,  each  act  was 
*-  supposed  to  have  its  special  and  pre-ordained 
function.  Freytag  assigns  to  the  second  act,  as  a 
rule,  the  Steigerung  or  heightening  —  the  working- 
up,  one  might  call  it  —  of  the  interest.  But  the 
second  act,  in  modern  plays,  has  often  to  do  all 
the  work  of  the  three  middle  acts  under  the  older 
dispensation ;  wherefore  the  theory  of  their  special 
functions  has  more  of  a  historical  than  of  a  practi- 
cal interest.  For  our  present  purposes,  we  may 
treat  the  interior  section  of  a  play  as  a  unit,  whether 
it  consist  of  one,  two,  or  three  acts. 

The  first  act  may  be  regarded  as  the  porch  or 
vestibule  through  which  we  pass  into  the  main 
fabric  —  solemn  or  joyous,  fantastic  or  austere  — 
of  the  actual  drama.  Sometimes,  indeed,  the  vesti- 
bule is  reduced  to  a  mere  threshold  which  can  be 
crossed  in  two  strides;  but  normally  the  first  act, 
or  at  any  rate  the  greater  part  of  it,  is  of  an  intro- 
ductory character.  Let  us  conceive,  then,  that  we 
have  passed  the  vestibule,  and  are  now  to  study 
the  principles  on  which  the  body  of  the  structure 
is  reared. 

In  the  first  place,  is  the  architectural  metaphor 
189 


PLAY-MAKING 

a  just  one?  Is  there,  or  ought  there  to  be,  any 
analogy  between  a  drama  and  a  finely-proportioned 
building?  The  question  has  already  been  touched 
on  in  the  opening  paragraphs  of  Chapter  VIII; 
but  we  may  now  look  into  it  a  little  more  closely. 

What  is  the  characteristic  of  a  fine  piece  of 
architecture?  Manifestly  an  organic  relation,  a 
carefully-planned  interdependence,  between  all  its 
parts.  A  great  building  is  a  complete  and  rounded 
whole,  just  like  a  living  organism.  It  is  informed 
by  an  inner  law  of  harmony  and  proportion,  and 
cannot  be  run  up  at  haphazard,  with  no  definite 
and  pre-determined  design.  Can  we  say  the  same 
of  a  great  play? 

I  think  we  can.  Even  in  those  plays  which 
present  a  picture  rather  than  an  action,  we  ought 
to  recognize  a  principle  of  selection,  proportion, 
composition,  which,  if  not  absolutely  organic,  is 
at  any  rate  the  reverse  of  haphazard.  We  may  not 
always  be  able  to  define  the  principle,  to  put  it 
clearly  in  words;  but  if  we  feel  that  the  author 
has  been  guided  by  no  principle,  that  he  has  pro- 
ceeded on  mere  hand-to-mouth  caprice,  that  there  is 
no  "  inner  law  of  harmony  and  proportion  "  in  his 
work,  then  we  instinctively  relegate  it  to  a  low 
place  in  our  esteem.  Hauptmann's  Weavers  cer- 
tainly cannot  be  called  a  piece  of  dramatic  archi- 
tecture, like  Rosmersholm  or  Iris;  but  that  does 
not  mean  that  it  is  a  mere  rambling  series  of 
tableaux.  It  is  not  easy  to  define  the  principle  of 
unity  in  that  brilliant  comedy  The  Madras  House; 


TENSION   AND   ITS   SUSPENSION       191 

but  we  nevertheless  feel  that  a  principle  of  unity 
exists;  or,  if  we  do  not,  so  much  the  worse  for 
the  play  and  its  author. 

There  is,  indeed,  a  large  class  of  plays,  often 
popular,  and  sometimes  meritorious,  in  relation  to 
which  the  architectural  metaphor  entirely  breaks 
down.  They  are  what  may  be  called  "  running 
fire "  plays.  We  have  all  seen  children  setting 
a  number  of  wooden  blocks  on  end,  at  equal  inter- 
vals, and  then  tilting  over  the  first  so  that  it  falls 
against  the  second,  which  in  turn  falls  against  the 
third,  and  so  on,  till  the  whole  row,  with  a  rapid 
clack-clack-clack,  lies  flat  upon  the  table.  This  is 
called  a  "  running  fire  " ;  and  this  is  the  structural 
principle  of  a  good  many  plays.  We  feel  that  the 
playwright  is,  so  to  speak,  inventing  as  he  goes 
along  —  that  the  action,  like  the  child's  fantastic 
serpentine  of  blocks,  might  at  any  moment  take  a 
turn  in  any  possible  direction  without  falsifying  its 
antecedents  or  our  expectations.  No  part  of  it  is 
necessarily  involved  in  any  other  part.  If  the 
play  were  found  too  long  or  too  short,  an  act 
might  be  cut  out  or  written  in  without  necessitating 
any  considerable  readjustments  in  the  other  acts. 
The  play  is  really  a  series  of  episodes, 

"Which  might,  odd  bobs,  sir!    in  judicious  hands, 
Extend  from  here  to  Mesopotamy." 

The  episodes  may  grow  out  of  each  other  plausibly 
enough,  but  by  no  pre-ordained  necessity,  and  with 
no  far-reaching  interdependence.  We  live,  in  such 


192  PLAY-MAKING 

plays,  from  moment  to  moment,  foreseeing  noth- 
ing, desiring  nothing;  and  though  this  frame  of 
mind  may  be  mildly  agreeable,  it  involves  none  of 
that  complexity  of  sensation  with  which  we  con- 
template a  great  piece  of  architecture,  or  follow 
the  development  of  a  finely-constructed  drama.  To 
this  order  belong  many  cape-and-sword  plays  and 
detective  dramas  —  plays  like  The  Adventure  of 
Lady  Ursula,  The  Red  Robe,  the  Musketeer  ro- 
mances that  were  at  one  time  so  popular,  and  most 
plays  of  the  Sherlock  Holmes  and  Raffles  type.  But 
pieces  of  a  more  ambitious  order  have  been  known 
to  follow  the  same  formula  —  some  of  the  works, 
for  instance,  of  Mr.  Charles  McEvoy,  to  say  noth- 
ing of  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw. 

We  may  take  it,  I  think,  that  the  architectural 
analogy  holds  good  of  every  play  which  can  prop- 
erly be  said  to  be  "  constructed."  Construction 
means  dramatic  architecture,  or  in  other  words, 
a  careful  flrLp7argaT1firtTn?ri<'  °f  proportions  and  intex- 
9  'dependencies.  But  to  carry  beyond  this  point  the 
analogy  between  the  two  arts  would  be  fantastic 
and  unhelpful.  The  one  exists  in  space,  the  other 
in  time.  The  one  seeks  to  beget  in  the  spectator 
a  state  of  placid,  though  it  may  be  of  aspiring, 
contemplation;  the  other,  a  state  of  more  or  less 
acute  tension.  The  resemblances  between  music 
and  architecture  are,  as  is  well  known,  much  more 
extensive  and  illuminating.  It  might  not  be  wholly 
fanciful  to  call  music  a  sort  of  middle  term  be- 
tween the  two  other  arts. 


TENSION   AND   ITS   SUSPENSION       193 

A  great  part  of  the  secret  of  dramatic  architec- 
ture lies  in  the  one  word  "  tension."  To  engender, 
maintain,  suspend,  heighten  and  resolve  a  state  of 
tension  —  that  is  the  main  object  of  the  dramatist's 
craft. 

What  do  we  mean  by  tension  ?  Clearly  a  stretch- 
ing out,  a  stretching  forward,  of  the  mind.  That 
is  the  characteristic  mental  attitude  of  the  theatrical 
audience.  If  the  mind  is  not  stretching  forward, 
the  body  will  soon  weary  of  its  immobility  and 
constraint.  Attention  may  be  called  the  momentary 
correlative  of  tension.  When  we  are  intent  on 
what  is  to  come,  we  are  attentive  to  what  is  there 
and  then  happening.  The  term  tension  is  some- 
times applied,  not  to  the  mental  state  of  the  audi- 
ence, but  to  the  relation  of  the  characters  on  the 
stage.  "  A  scene  of  high  tension  "  is  primarily  one 
in  which  the  actors  undergo  a  great  emotional 
strain.  But  this  is,  after  all,  only  a  means  towards 
heightening  the  mental  tension  of  the  audience. 
In  such  a  scene  the  mind  stretches  forward,  no 
longer  to  something  vague  and  distant,  but  to  some- 
thing instant  and  imminent. 

In  discussing  what  Freytag  calls  the  erregende 
Moment,  we  might  have  defined  it  as  the  starting- 
point  of  the  tension.  A  reasonable  audience  will, 
if  necessary,  endure  a  certain  amount  of  exposi- 
tion, a  certain  positing  of  character  and  circum- 
stance, before  the  tension  sets  in;  but  when  it 
once  has  set  in,  the  playwright  must  on  no  account 
suffer  it  to  relax  until  he  deliberately  resolves  it 


194  PLAY-MAKING 

just  before  the  fall  of  the  curtain.  There  are,  of 
course,  minor  rhythms  of  tension  and  resolution, 
like  the  harmonic  vibrations  of  a  violin-string. 
That  is  implied  when  \ve  say  that  a  play  consists 
of  a  great  crisis  worked  out  through  a  series  of 
minor  crises.  But  the  main  tension,  once  initiated, 
must  never  be  relaxed.  If  it  is,  the  play  is  over, 
though  the  author  may  have  omitted  to  note  the 
fact.  Not  infrequently,  he  begins  a  new  play  under 
the  impression  that  he  is  finishing  the  old  one. 
That  is  what  Shakespeare  did  in  The  Merchant  of 
Venice.  The  fifth  act  is  an  independent  afterpiece, 
though  its  independence  is  slightly  disguised  by 
the  fact  that  the  erregendc  Moment  of  the  new 
play  follows  close  upon  the  end  of  the  old  one, 
with  no  interact  between.  A  very  exacting  techni- 
cal criticism  might  accuse  Ibsen  of  verging  towards 
the  same  fault  in  An  Enemy  of  the  People.  There 
the  tension  is  practically  resolved  with  Dr. 
Stockmann's  ostracism  at  the  end  of  the  fourth 
act.  At  that  point,  if  it  did  not  know  that  there 
was  another  act  to  come,  an  audience  might  go 
home  in  perfect  content.  The  fifth  act  is  a  sort  of 
epilogue  or  sequel,  built  out  of  the  materials  of  the 
preceding  drama,  but  not  forming  an  integral  part 
of  it.  With  a  brief  exposition  to  set  forth  the  ante- 
cedent circumstances,  it  would  be  quite  possible  to 
present  the  fifth  act  as  an  independent  comedietta. 
But  here  a  point  of  great  importance  calls  for 
our  notice.  Though  the  tension,  once  started,  must 
never  be  relaxed:  though  it  ought,  on  the  con- 


TENSION   AND   ITS   SUSPENSION       195 

trary,  to  be  heightened  or  tightened  (as  you  choose 
to  put  it)  from  act  to  act ;  yet  there  are  times  when 
it  may  without  disadvantage,  or  even  with  marked 
advantage,  be  temporarily  suspended.  In  other 
words,  the  stretching-forward,  without  in  any  way 
slackening,  may  fall  into  the  background  of  our 
consciousness,  while  other  matters,  the  relevance 
of  which  may  not  be  instantly  apparent,  are  suffered 
to  occupy  the  foreground.  We  know  all  too  well, 
in  everyday  experience,  that  tension  is  not  really 
relaxed  by  a  temporary  distraction.  The  dread  of 
a  coming  ordeal  in  the  witness-box  or  on  the 
operating-table  may  be  forcibly  crushed  down  like 
a  child's  jack-in-the-box;  but  we  are  always  con- 
scious of  the  effort  to  compress  it,  and  we  know 
that  it  will  spring  up  again  the  moment  that  effort 
ceases.  Sir  Arthur  Pinero's  play,  The  Profligate, 
was  written  at  a  time  when  it  was  the  fashion  to 
give  each  act  a  sub-title;  and  one  of  its  acts  is 
headed  "  The  Sword  of  Damocles."  That  is,  in- 
deed, the  inevitable  symbol  of  dramatic  tension : 
we  see  a  sword  of  Damocles  (even  though  it  be 
only  a  farcical  blade  of  painted  lathe)  impending 
over  some  one's  head :  and  when  once  we  are  confi- 
dent that  it  will  fall  at  the  fated  moment,  we  do 
not  mind  having  our  attention  momentarily  di- 
verted to  other  matters.  A  rather  flagrant  example 
of  suspended  attention  is  afforded  by  Hamlet's 
advice  to  the  Players.  We  know  that  Hamlet  has 
hung  a  sword  of  Damocles  over  the  King's  head 
in  the  shape  of  the  mimic  murder-scene ;  and,  while 


196  PLAY-MAKING 

it  is  preparing,  we  are  quite  willing  to  have  our 
attention  switched  off  to  certain  abstract  questions 
of  dramatic  criticism.  The  scene  might  have  been 
employed  to  heighten  the  tension.  Instead  of  giv- 
ing the  Players  (in  true  princely  fashion)  a  lesson 
in  the  general  principles  of  their  art,  Hamlet  might 
have  specially  "  coached  "  them  in  the  "  business  " 
of  the  scene  to  be  enacted,  and  thus  doubly  im- 
pressed on  the  audience  his  resolve  to  "  tent "  the 
King  "  to  the  quick."  I  am  far  from  suggesting 
that  this  would  have  been  desirable;  but  it  would 
obviously  have  been  possible.1  Shakespeare,  as  the 
experience  of  three  centuries  has  shown,  did  right 
in  judging  that  the  audience  was  already  sufficiently 
intent  on  the  coming  ordeal,  and  would  welcome  an 
interlude  of  aesthetic  theory. 

There  are  times,  moreover,  when  it  is  not  only 
permissible  to  suspend  the  tension,  but  when,  by 
so  doing,  a  great  artist  can  produce  a  peculiar  and 
admirable  effect.  A  sudden  interruption,  on  the 
very  brink  of  a  crisis,  may,  as  it  were,  whet  the 
appetite  of  the  audience  for  what  is  to  come.  We 
see  in  the  Porter  scene  in  Macbeth  a  suspension  of 
this  nature;  but  Shakespeare  used  it  sparingly, 
unless,  indeed,  we  are  to  consider  as  a  deliberate 
point  of  art  the  retardation  of  movement  com- 
monly observable  in  the  fourth  acts  of  his  trage- 
dies. Ibsen,  on  the  other  hand,  deliberately  em- 

1  This  method  of  heightening  the  tension  would  have 
been  somewhat  analogous  to  that  employed  by  Oscar  Wilde 
in  Lady  Windermere's  instructions  to  her  butler,  cited  on 
p.  179. 


TENSION   AND   ITS   SUSPENSION       197 

ployed  this  device  on  three  conspicuous  occasions. 
The  entrance  of  Dr.  Rank  in  the  last  act  of  A 
Doll's  House  is  a  wholly  unnecessary  interruption 
to  the  development  of  the  crisis  between  Nora 
and  Helmer.  The  scene  might  be  entirely  omitted 
without  leaving  a  perceptible  hiatus  in  the  action ; 
yet  who  does  not  feel  that  this  brief  respite  lends 
gathered  impetus  to  the  main  action  when  it  is 
resumed?  The  other  instances  are  offered  by  the 
two  apparitions  of  Ulric  Brendel  in  Rosmersholm. 
The  first  occurs  when  Rosmer  is  on  the  very  verge 
of  his  momentous  confession  to  Kroll,  the  second 
when  Rosmer  and  Rebecca  are  on  the  very  verge 
of  their  last  great  resolve;  and  in  each  case  we 
feel  a  distinct  value  (apart  from  the  inherent 
quality  of  the  Brendel  scenes)  in  the  very  fact  that 
the  tension  has  been  momentarily  suspended.  Such 
a  rallentando  effect  is  like  the  apparent  pause  in 
the  rush  of  a  river  before  it  thunders  over  a 
precipice. 

The  possibility  of  suspending  tension  is  of  wider 
import  than  may  at  first  sight  appear.  But  for  it, 
our  dramas  would  have  to  be  all  bone  and  muscle, 
like  the  figures  in  an  anatomical  text-book.  As  it 
is,  we  are  able,  without  relaxing  tension,  to  shift 
it  to  various  planes  of  consciousness,  and  thus  find 
leisure  to  reproduce  the  surface  aspects  of  life, 
with  some  of  its  accidents  and  irrelevances.  For 
example,  when  the  playwright  has,  at  the  end  of  his 
first  act,  succeeded  in  carrying  onward  the  spec- 
tator's interest,  and  giving  him  something  definite 


198  PLAY-MAKING 

to  look  forward  to,  it  does  not  at  all  follow  that 
the  expected  scene,  situation,  revelation,  or  what 
not,  should  come  at  the  beginning  of  the  second 
act.  In  some  cases  it  must  do  so;  when,  as  in 
Tlie  Idyll  above  cited,  the  spectator  has  been  care- 
fully induced  to  expect  some  imminent  conjuncture 
which  cannot  be  postponed.  But  this  can  scarcely 
be  called  a  typical  case.  More  commonly,  when  an 
author  has  enlisted  the  curiosity  of  his  audience  of 
some  definite  point,  he  will  be  in  no  great  hurry 
to  satisfy  and  dissipate  it.  He  may  devote  the 
early  part  of  the  second  act  to  working-up  the  same 
line  of  interest  to  a  higher  pitch ;  or  he  may  hold 
it  in  suspense  while  he  prepares  some  further  de- 
velopment of  the  action.  The  closeness  with  which 
a  line  of  interest,  once  started,  ought  to  be  fol- 
lowed up,  must  depend  in  some  measure  on  the 
nature  and  tone  of  the  play.  If  it  be  a  serious  play, 
:n  which  character  and  action  are  very  closely 
intertwined,  any  pause  or  break  in  the  conjoint 
development  is  to  be  avoided.  If,  on  the  other 
hand,  it  is  a  play  of  light  and  graceful  dialogue, 
in  which  the  action  is  a  pretext  for  setting  the 
characters  in  motion  rather  than  the  chief  means 
towards  their  manifestation,  then  the  playwright 
can  afford  to  relax  the  rate  of  his  progress,  and 
even  to  wander  a  little  from  the  straight  line  of 
advance.  In  such  a  play,  even  the  old  institution 
of  the  "  underplot "  is  not  inadmissible ;  though 
the  underplot  ought  scarcely  to  be  a  "  plot,"  but 
only  some  very  slight  thread  of  interest,  involving 


TENSION   AND   ITS   SUSPENSION       199 

no  strain  on  the  attention.1  It  may  almost  be  called 
an  established  practice,  on  the  English  stage,  to 
let  the  dalliance  of  a  pair  of  boy-and-girl  lovers 
relieve  the  main  interest  of  a  more  or  less  serious 
comedy;  and  there  is  no  particular  harm  in  such 
a  convention,  if  it  be  not  out  of  keeping  with  the 
general  character  of  the  play.  In  some  plays  the 
substance  —  the  character-action,  if  one  may  so 
call  it  —  is  the  main,  and  indeed  the  only,  thing. 
In  others  the  substance,  though  never  unimpor- 
tant, is  in  some  degree  subordinate  to  the  em- 
broideries; and  it  is  for  the  playwright  to  judge 
how  far  this  subordination  may  safely  be  carried, 
One  principle,  however,  may  be  emphasized  as 
almost  universally  valid,  and  that  is  that  the  end 
of  an  act  should  never  leave  the  action  just  where 
it  stood  at  the  beginning.  An  audience  has  an 
instinctive  sense  of,  and  desire  for,  progress.  It 
does  not  like  to  realize  that  things  have  been 
merely  marking  time.  Even  if  it  has  been  thor- 
oughly entertained,  from  moment  to  moment,  dur- 
ing the  progress  of  an  act,  it  does  not  like  to  feel 
at  the  end  that  nothing  has  really  happened.  The 

1  Dryden  (Of  Dramatic  Poesy,  p.  56,  ed.  Arnold,  1903) 
says :  "  Our  plays,  besides  the  main  design,  have  underplots 
or  by-concernments,  of  less  considerable  persons  and  in- 
trigues, which  are  carried  on  with  the  motion  of  the  main 
plot;  as  they  say  the  orb  of  the  fixed  stars,  and  those  of 
the  planets,  though  they  have  motions  of  their  own,  are 
whirled  about  by  the  motion  of  the  primum  mobile,  in  which 
they  are  contained."  This  is  an  admirable  description  of 
the  ideal  underplot,  as  conceived  by  our  forefathers;  but 
we  find  that  two  lines  of  tension  jar  with  and  weaken  each 
other. 


200  PLAY-MAKING 

fall  of  the  curtain  gives  time  for  reflection,  and 
for  the  ordering  of  impressions  which,  while  the 
action  was  afoot,  were  more  or  less  vague  and  con- 
fused. It  is  therefore  of  great  importance  that 
each  act  should,  to  put  it  briefly,  bear  looking  back 
upon  —  that  it  should  appear  to  stand  in  due  pro- 
portion  to  the  general  design  of  the  play,  and 
should  not  be  felt  to  have  been  empty,  or  irrele- 
vant, or  disappointing.  This  is,  indeed,  a  plain 
corollary  from  the  principle  of  tension.  Suspended 
it  may  be,  sometimes  with  positive  advantage ;  but 
it  must  not  be  suspended  too  long ;  and  suspension 
for  a  whole  act  is  equivalent  to  relaxation. 

To  sum  up:  when  once  a  play  has  begun  to 
move,  its  movement  ought  to  proceed  continuously, 
and  with  gathering  momentum ;  or,  if  it  stands  still 
for  a  space,  the  stoppage  ought  to  be  deliberate  and 
purposeful.  It  is  fatal  when  the  author  thinks  it 
is  moving,  while  in  fact  it  is  only  revolving  on  its 
own  axis. 


XII 

PREPARATION:   THE  FINGER-POST 

WE  shall  find,  oh  looking  into  it,  that  most  of 
the  technical  maxims  that  have  any  validity 
may  be  traced  back,  directly  or  indirectly,  to  the 
great  principle  of  tension.  The  art  of  construe- 
tion  is  summed  up,  first,  in  giving  the  mind  of  an 
audience  something  to  which  to  stretch  forward, 
and,  secondly,  in  not  letting  it  feel  that  it  has 
stretched  forward  in  vain.  "  You  will  find  it  infi- 
nitely pleasing,"  says  Dryden,1  "  to  be  led  in  a 
labyrinth  of  design,  where  you  see  some  of  your 
way  before  you,  yet  discern  not  the  end  till  you 
arrive  at  it."  Or,  he  might  have  added,  "  if  you 
foresee  the  end,  but  not  the  means  by  which  it  is 
to  be  reached."  In  drama,jisjn  all  art,  the  "  how  " 
isjoften  more  important  tj^n^the^_what.^ 

No  technical  maxim  is  more  frequently  cited 
than  the  remark  of  the  younger  Dumas :  "  The  art 
of  the  theatre  is  the  art  of  preparations."  This  is 
true  in  a  larger  sense  than  he  intended ;  but  at 
the  same  time  there  are  limits  to  its  truth,  which 
we  must  not  fail  to  observe. 

Dumas,  as  we  know,  was  an  inveterate  preacher, 
using  the  stage  as  a  pulpit  for  the  promulgation 
1  Of  Dramatic  Poesy,  ed.  Arnold,  1903,  p.  60. 
201 


202  PLAY-MAKING 

of  moral  and  social  ideas  which  were,  in  their 
day,  considered  very  advanced  and  daring.  The 
primary  meaning  of  his  maxim,  then,  was  that  a 
startling  idea,  or  a  scene  wherein  such  an  idea  was 
implied,  ought  not  to  be  sprung  upon  an  audience 
wholly  unprepared  to  accept  it.  For  instance,  in 
Monsieur  Alphonse,  a  husband,  on  discovering 
that  his  wife  has  had  an  intrigue  before  their  mar- 
riage, and  that  a  little  girl  whom  she  wishes  to 
adopt  is  really  her  daughter,  instantly  raises  her 
from  the  ground  where  she  lies  grovelling  at  his 
feet,  and  says  :  "  Creature  de  Dieu,  toi  qui  as 
failli  et  te  repens,  releve  toi,  je  te  pardonne." 
This  evangelical  attitude  on  the  part  of  Admiral 
de  Montaiglin  was  in  itself  very  surprising,  and 
perhaps  not  wholly  admirable,  to  the  Parisian 
public  of  1873;  but  Dumas  had  so  "prepared" 
the  coup  de  theatre  that  it  passed  with  very  slight 
difficulty  on  the  first  night,  and  with  none  at  all  at 
subsequent  performances  and  revivals.  How  had 
he  "  prepared  !Lit  ?  Why,  by  playing,  in  a  score 
of  subtle  ways,  upon  t 


of  ifre  audience.  For  instance,  as  Sarcey  points 
out,  he  had  made  M.  de  Montaiglin  a  sailor,  "ac- 
customed, during  his  distant  voyages,  to  long  rever- 
ies in  view  of  the  boundless  ocean,  whence  he  had 
acquired  a  mystical  habit  of  mind.  .  .  .  Dumas 
certainly  would  never  have  placed  this  pardon  in 
the  mouth  of  a  stockbroker."  So  far  so  good  ;  but 
"  preparation,"  in  the  sense  of  the  word,  is  a  de- 
vice of  rhetoric  or  of  propaganda  rather  than  of 


PREPARATION:  THE  FINGER  POST    203 

dramatic  craftsmanship.  It  is  a  method  of  astutely 
undermining  or  outflanking  prejudice.  Desiring  to 
enforce  a  general  principle,  you  invent  a  case  which 
is  specially  favourable  to  your  argument,  and  in- 
sinuate it  into  the  acceptance  of  the  audience  by 
every  possible  subtlety  of  adjustment.  You  trust, 
it  would  seem,  that  people  who  have  applauded  an 
act  of  pardon  in  an  extreme  case  will  be  so  much 
the  readier  to  exercise  that  high  prerogative  in 
the  less  carefully  "  prepared  "  cases  which  present 
themselves  in  real  life.  This  may  or  may  not  be 
a  sound  principle  of  persuasion;  as  we  are  not 
here  considering  the  drama  as  an  art  of  persuasion, 
we  have  not  to  decide  between  this  and  the  oppo- 
site, or  Shawesque,  principle  of  shocking  and  start- 
ling an  audience  by  the  utmost  violence  of  paradox. 
There  is  something  to  be  said  for  both  methods  — 
for  conversion  by  pill-and-jelly  and  for  conversion 
by  nitroglycerine. 

Reverting,  now,  to  the  domain  of  pure  crafts-  (\ 
manship,  can  it  be  said  that  "  the  ajf  of  tb 


is  the  art  qf  preparation  "  ?  Yes,  it  is  vejy 
the  art  of  delicate  and  unobtrusive  preparation,  of 
helping  an_audience  tq_  divine  whither  it  is  gninpr. 
wrnle  leaving  i.t_^o_jwonder  how  it  is  to  %et  there. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  is  also  the  art  of  avoiding 
laborious,  j\rt'firi'a1  ^  ntwinns  preparations  which 
lead  to  little  or  nothing.  A  due  proportion  must 
always  be  observed  between  the  preparation  and 
the  result. 

To  illustrate  the  meaning  of  preparation,  as  the 


204  PLAY-MAKING 

word  is  here  employed,  I  may  perhaps  be  allowed 
to  reprint  a  passage  from  a  review  of  Mr.  Israel 
Zangwill's  play  Children  of  the  Ghetto.1 

...  To  those  who  have  not  read  the  novel,  it  must 
seem  as  though  the  mere  illustrations  of  Jewish  life 
entirely  overlaid  and  overwhelmed  the  action.  It  is 
not  so  in  reality.  One  who  knows  the  story  before- 
hand can  often  see  that  it  is  progressing  even  in 
scenes  which  seem  purely  episodic  and  unconnected 
either  with  each  other  or  with  the  general  scheme. 
But  Mr.  Zangwill  has  omitted  to  provide  finger- 
posts, if  I  may  so  express  it,  to  show  those  who  do 
not  know  the  story  beforehand  whither  he  is  leading 
them.  He  has  neglected  the  great  art  of  forecasting, 
of  keeping  anticipation  on  the  alert,  which  is  half  the 
secret  of  dramatic  construction.  To  forecast,  with- 
out discounting,  your  effects  —  that  is  all  the  Law 
and  the  Prophets.  In  the  first  act  of  Children  of  the 
Ghetto,  for  instance,  we  see  the  marriage  in  jest  of 
Hannah  to  Sam  Levine,  followed  by  the  instant  di- 
vorce with  all  its  curious  ceremonies.  This  is  amus- 
ing so  far  as  it  goes;  but  when  the  divorce  is  com- 
pleted, the  whole  thing  seems  to  be  over  and  done 
with.  We  have  seen  some  people,  in  whom  as  yet 
we  take  no  particular  interest,  enmeshed  in  a  diffi- 
culty arising  from  a  strange  and  primitive  formalism 
in  the  interpretation  of  law ;  and  we  have  seen  the 
meshes  cut  to  the  satisfaction  of  all  parties,  and  the 
incident  to  all  appearance  closed.  There  is  no  finger- 
post to  direct  our  anticipation  on  the  way  it  should 
go;  and  those  who  have  not  read  the  book  cannot 
possibly  guess  that  this  mock  marriage,  instantly  and 

1  The  World,  December  20,  1899. 


PREPARATION:  THE  FINGER  POST    205 

ceremoniously  dissolved,  can  have  any  ulterior  effect 
upon  the  fortunes  of  any  one  concerned.  Thus,  the 
whole  scene,  however  curious  in  itself,  seems  motive- 
less and  resultless.  How  the  requisite  finger-post 
was  to  be  provided  I  cannot  tell.  That  is  not  my 
business ;  but  a  skilful  dramatist  would  have  made 
it  his.  Then,  in  the  second  act,  amid  illustrations 
of  social  life  in  the  Ghetto,  we  have  the  meeting  of 
Hannah  with  David  Brandon,  a  prettily-written  scene 
of  love-at-first-sight.  But,  so  far  as  any  one  can  see, 
there  is  every  prospect  that  the  course  of  true  love 
will  run  absolutely  smooth.  Again  we  lack  a  finger- 
post to  direct  our  interest  forward;  nor  do  we  see 
anything  that  seems  to  bring  this  act  into  vital  re- 
lation with  its  predecessor.  Those  who  have  read 
the  book  know  that  David  Brandon  is  a  '  Cohen,'  a 
priest,  a  descendant  of  Aaron,  and  that  a  priest  may 
not  marry  a  divorced  woman.  Knowing  this,  we 
have  a  sense  of  irony,  of  impending  disaster,  which 
renders  the  love-scene  of  the  second  act  dramatic. 
But  to  those,  and  they  must  always  be  a  majority  in 
any  given  audience,  who  do  not  know  this,  the  scene 
has  no  more  dramatic  quality  than  lies  in  its  actual 
substance,  which,  although  pretty  enough,  is  entirely 
commonplace.  Not  till  the  middle  of  the  third  act 
(out  of  four)  is  the  obstacle  revealed,  and  we  see 
that  the  mighty  maze  was  not  without  a  plan.  Here, 
then,  the  drama  begins,  after  two  acts  and  a  half 
of  preparation,  during  which  we  were  vouchsafed 
no  inkling  of  what  was  preparing.  It  is  capital 
drama  when  we  come  to  it,  really  human,  really 
tragic.  The  arbitrary  prohibitions  of  the  Mosaic 
law  have  no  religious  or  moral  force  either  for  David 
or  for  Hannah.  They  feel  it  to  be  their  right,  al- 


206  PLAY-MAKING 

most  their  duty,  to  cast  off  their  shackles.  In  any 
community,  save  that  of  strict  Judaism,  they  are 
perfectly  free  to  marry.  But  in  thus  flouting  the 
letter  of  the  law,  Hannah  well  knows  that  she  will 
break  her  father's  heart.  Even  as  she  struggles  to 
shake  them  off,  the  traditions  of  her  race  take  firmer 
hold  on  her;  and  in  the  highly  dramatic  last  act  (a 
not  unskilful  adaptation  to  the  stage  of  the  crucial 
scene  of  the  book)  she  bows  her  neck  beneath  the 
yoke,  and  renounces  love  that  the  Law  may  be 
fulfilled." 

To  state  the  matter  in  other  terms,  we  are  con- 
scious of  no  tension  in  the  earlier  acts  of  this 
play,  because  we  have  not  been  permitted  to  see 
the  sword  of  Damocles  hanging  over  the  heads  of 
Hannah  and  David  Brandon.  For  lack  of  prepara- 
tion, of  pointing-forward,  we  feel  none  of  that 
god-like  superiority  to  the  people  of  the  mimic 
world  which  we  have  recognized  as  the  charac- 
teristic privilege  of  the  spectator.  We  know  no 
more  than  they  do  of  the  implications  of  their  acts, 
and  the  network  of  embarrassments  in  which  they 
are  involving  themselves.  Indeed,  we  know  less 
than  they  do:  for  Hannah,  as  a  well-brought-up 
Jewess,  is  no  doubt  vaguely  aware  of  the  disabili- 
ties attaching  to  a  divorced  woman.  A  gentile 
audience,  on  the  other  hand,  cannot  possibly  fore- 
see how  — 

"  Some  consequence  yet  hanging  in  the  stars  * 

Shall  bitterly  begin  his  fearful  date 
With  this  night's  revels." 


PREPARATION:  THE  FINGER  POST    207 

and,  lackimUkal  f9£eknowlqdg-e.  it  misses  the  spe- 
cifically dramatic  effect  of  the  scenes.  The  author 
invites  it  to  play  at  blind-man's-buff  with  the  char- 
acters, instead  of  unsealing  its  eyes  and  enabling 
it  to  watch  the  game  from  its  Olympian  coign  of 
vantage.  /, 

Let  the  dramatist,  then,  never  neglect  to  place 
the_requisite  finger-posts  on  the  Toajdjhe_would  have 
us  follow.  It  is  not,  of  course,  necessary  {hat  we 

shniTTrThp^nn^riniTg  r^f  fill  thp  irtipfi'^inns  of  jiny 

ffivenTscene  or  incident,  hnt  we  must  know  enough 
of  jhenT  not  only  tQ  rreate  foe  requisite  tension, 
but  to  direct  it^owards  the  right  quarter  of  the 
cqmjgaaSi  Retrospective  elucidations  are  valueless 
and  sometimes  irritating.  It  is  in  nowise  to  the 
author's  interest  that  we  should  say,  "  Ah,  if  we 
had  only  known  this,  or  foreseen  that,  in  time,  the 
effect  of  such-and-such  a  scene  would  have  been 
entirely  different ! "  Wejiave  no  use  for  finger- 
posts that  point  backwards/ 

In  the  works  of  Sir  Arthur  Pinero  I  recall  two 
cases  in  which  the  lack  of  a  finger-post  impairs 
the  desired  effect:  slightly,  in  the  one  instance,  in 
the  other,  very  considerably.  The  third  act  of  that 
delightful  comedy  The  Princess  and  the  Butterfly 
contains  no  sufficient  indication  of  Fay  Zuliani's 

1  At  the  end  of  the  first  of  Lady  Inger  of  Ostraat,  Ibsen 
evidently  intends  to  produce  a  startling  effect  through  the 
sudden  appearance  of  Olaf  Skaktavl  in  Lady  Inger's  hall. 
But  as  he  has  totally  omitted  to  tell  us  who  the  strange 
man  is,  the  incident  has  no  meaning  for  us.  In  1855  Ibsen 
had  all  his  technical  lessons  yet  to  learn. 


208  PLAY-MAKING 

jealousy  of  the  friendship  between  Sir  George 
Lamorant  and  the  Princess  Pannonia.  We  are 
rather  at  a  loss  to  account  for  the  coldness  of  her 
attitude  to  the  Princess,  and  her  perverse  naughti- 
ness in  going  off  to  the  Opera  Ball.  This  renders 
the  end  of  the  act  practically  ineffective.  We  so 
little  foresee  what  is  to  come  of  Fay's  midnight 
escapade,  that  we  take  no  particular  interest  in  it, 
and  are  rather  disconcerted  by  the  care  with  which 
it  is  led  up  to,  and  the  prominence  assigned  to  it. 
This,  however,  is  a  trifling  fault.  Far  different  is 
the  case  in  the  last  act  of  The  Benefit,  of  the  Doubt, 
which  goes  near  to  ruining  what  is  otherwise  a  very 
fine  play.  The  defect,  indeed,  is  not  purely  tech- 
nical: on  looking  into  it  we  find  that  the  author 
is  not  in 'fact  working  towards  an  ending  which 
can  be  called  either  inevitable  or  conspicuously  de- 
sirable. His  failure  to  point  forward  is  no  doubt 
partly  due  to  his  having  nothing  very  satisfactory 
to  point  forward  to.  But  it  is  only  in  retrospect 
that  this  becomes  apparent.  What  we  feel  while 
the  act  is  in  progress  is  simply  the  lack  of  any 
finger-post  to  afford  us  an  inkling  of  the  end 
towards  which  we  are  proceeding.  Through  scene 
after  scene  we  appear  to  be  making  no  progress, 
but  going  round  and  round  in  a  depressing  circle. 
The  tension,  in  a  word,  is  fatally  relaxed.  It  may 
perhaps  be  suggested  as  a  maxim  that  when  an 
author  finds  a  difficulty  in  placing  the  requisite 
fingers-posts,  as  he  nears  the  end  of  his  play, 
he  will  do  well  to  suspect  that  the  end  he  has 


PREPARATION:  THE  FINGER  POST    209 

in  view  is  defective,  and  to  try  if  he  cannot 
amend  it. 

In  the  ancient,  and  in  the  modern  romantic, 
drama,  oracles,  portents,  prophecies,  horoscopes 
and  such-like  intromissions  of  the  supernatural 
afforded  a  very  convenient  aid  to  the  placing  of 
the  requisite  finger-posts  —  "  foreshadowing  with- 
out forestalling."  It  has  often  been  said  that 
Macbeth  approaches  the  nearest  of  all  Shakespeare's 
tragedies  to  the  antinue  model:  and  in  nothing  is 
the  resemblance  clearer  than  in  the  employment  of 
the  Witches  to  point  their  skinny  fingers  into  the 
fated  future.  In_Romeo  and  Juliet,  inward  fore- 
boding  takes  the  place  of  outward  prophecy.  I 
have  quoted'  above  Romeo's  prevision  of  "  Some 
consequence  yet  hanging  in  the  stars  " ;  and  beside 
it  may  be  placed  Juliet's  — 

"I  have  no  joy  of  this  contract  to-night; 
It  is  too  rash,  too  unadvised,  too  sudden, 
Too  like  the  lightning  which  doth  cease  to  be 
Ere  one  can  say  it  lightens." 

In  Othello,  on  the  other  hand,  the  most  modern  of 
all  his  plays,  Shakespeare  had  recourse  neither  to 
outward  boding,  nor  to  inward  foreboding,  but 
planted  a  plain  finger-post  in  the  soil  of  human 
nature,  when  he  made  Brabantio  say  — 

"Look  to  her,  Moor,  if  thou  hast  eyes  to  see: 
She  has  deceived  her  father,  and  may  thee." 

Mr.  Stephen  Phillips,  in  the  first  act  of  Paolo  and 
Francesco,  outdoes  all  his  predecessors,  ancient  or 


210  PLAY-MAKING 

modern,  in  his  daring  use  of  sibylline  prophecy. 
He  makes  Giovanni's  blind  foster-mother,  Angela, 
foretell  the  tragedy  in  almost  every  detail,  save 
that,  in  her  vision,  she  cannot  see  the  face  of  Fran- 
cesca's  lover.  Mr.  Phillips,  I  take  it,  is  here  rein- 
forcing ancient  tradition  by  a  reference  to  modern 
"  psychical  research."  He  trusts  to  our  conceiving 
such  clairvoyance  to  be  not  wholly  impossible,  and 
giving  it  what  may  be  called  provisional  credence. 
Whether  the  device  be  artistic  or  not  we  need 
not  here  consider.  I  merely  point  to  it  as  a  con- 
spicuous example  of  the  use  of  the  finger-post.1 

It  need  scarcely  be  said  that  a  misleading  finger- 
post is  carefully  to  be  avoided,  except  in  the  rare 
cases  where  it  may  be  advisable  to  beget  a  mo- 
mentary misapprehension  on  the  part  01  the  audi- 
ence, which  shall  be  almost  instantly  correctedjn 
some  pleasant  or  otherwise  effective  f ashionT'  It 
is  naturally  difficult  to  think  of  striking  instances 
of  the  misleading  finger-posts;  for  plays  which 
contain  such  a  blunder  are  not  apt  to  survive. 
evenlri~tne  memooE  A  small  example  occurs  in 
a  clever  play  named  A  Modern  Aspasia  by  Mr. 

1  The  fact  that  Mr.  Phillips  should  haye  deemed  such  a 
foreshadowing  necessary  shows  how  instinctively  a  dram- 
atist feels  that  the  logic  of  his  art  requires  him  to  assume 
that  his  audience  is  ignorant  of  his  fable.  In  reality,  very 
few  members  of  the  first-night  audience,  or  of  any  other, 
can  have  depended  on  old  Angela's  vaticination  for  the 
requisite  foresight  of  events.  But  this  does  not  prove  An- 
gela to  be  artistically  superfluous. 

'  See  pp.  183,  365. 


PREPARATION:  THE  FINGER  POST     211 

Hamilton  Fyfe.  Edward  Meredith  has  two  house- 
holds :  a  London  house  over  which  his  lawful  wife, 
Muriel,  presides;  and  a  country  cottage  where 
dwells  his  mistress,  Margaret,  with  her  two  chil- 
dren. One  day  Muriel's  automobile  breaks  down 
near  Margaret's  cottage,  and,  while  the  tyre  is  be- 
ing repaired,  Margaret  gives  her  visitor  tea,  neither 
of  them  knowing  the  other.  Throughout  the  scene 
we  are  naturally  wondering  whether  a  revelation  is 
to  occur;  and  when,  towards  the  close,  Muriel 
goes  to  Margaret's  room,  "  to  put  her  hat  straight," 
we  have  no  longer  any  doubt  on  the  subject.  It  is 
practically  inevitable  that  she  should  find  in  the 
room  her  husband's  photograph,  or  some  object 
which  she  should  instantly  recognize  as  his,  and 
should  return  to  the  stage  in  full  possession  of  the 
secret.  This  is  so  probable  that  nothing  but  a 
miracle  can  prevent  it :  we  mentally  give  the  author 
credit  for  bringing  about  his  revelation  in  a  very 
simple  and  natural  way;  and  we  are  proportion- 
ately disappointed  when  we  find  that  the  miracle 
has  occurred,  and  that  Muriel  returns  to  the  sitting- 
room  no  wiser  than  she  left  it.  Very  possibly 
the  general  economy  of  the  play  demanded  that 
the  revelation  should  not  take  place  at  this  juncture. 
That  question  does  not  here  concern  us.  The  point 
is  that,  having  determined  to  reserve  the  revelation 
for  his  next  act,  the  author  ought  not,  by  sending 
Muriel  into  Margaret's  bedroom,  to  have  awakened 
in  us  a  confident  anticipation  of  its  occurring  there 
and  then.  A  romantic  play  by  Mr.  J.  B.  Fagan, 


212  PLAY-MAKING 

entitled  Under  Which  King?  offers  another  small 
instance  of  the  same  nature.  The  date  is  1746; 
certain  despatches  of  vast  importance  have  to  be 
carried  by  a  Hanoverian  officer  from  Moidart  to 
Fort  William.  The  Jacobites  arrange  to  drug  the 
officer;  and,  to  make  assurance  doubly  sure,  in 
case  the  drug  should  fail  to  act,  they  post  a  High- 
land marksman  in  a  narrow  glen  to  pick  him  off 
as  he  passes.  The  drug  does  act;  but  his  lady- 
love, to  save  his  military  honour,  assumes  male 
attire  and  rides  off  with  the  despatches.  We  hear 
her  horse's  hoofs  go  clattering  down  the  road ;  and 
then,  as  the  curtain  falls,  we  hear  a  shot  ring  out 
into  the  night.  This  shot  is  a  misleading  finger- 
post. Nothing  comes  of  it:  we  find  in  the  next 
act  that  the  marksman  has  missed!  But  marks- 
men, under  such  circumstances,  have  no  business 
to  miss.  It  is  a  breach  of  the  dramatic  proprieties. 
We  feel  that  the  author  has  been  trifling  with  us 
in  inflicting  on  us  this  purely  mechanical  and  mo- 
mentary "  scare."  The  case  would  be  different  if 
the  young  lady  knew  that  the  marksman  was  lying 
in  ambush,  and  determined  to  run  the  gantlet. 
In  that  case  the  incident  would  be  a  trait  of  char- 
acter; but,  unless  my  memory  deceives  me,  that 
is  not  the  case.  On  the  stage,  every  bulfct  should 
have  its  billet  —  not  necessarily,  in  _the  person  ^mflfl, 
at.  birt  in^the  emotions  or  anticipations  of  the 
audience.  This  bullet  may,  indeed,  give  us  a  mo- 
mentary thrill  of  alarm ;  but  it  is  dearly  bought  at 
the  expense  of  subsequent  disillusionment. 


PREPARATION:  THE  FINGER  POST    213 

We  have  now  to  consider  the  subject  of  c^yer- 
preparation,  toftt  obtrusive  preparation,  mountain- 
ous preparation  leading  only  to  a  mouse-like  effect, 
Thisis  the  characteristic  error  of  the  so-called 
"  well-made  play,"  the  play  of  elaborate  and  in- 
genious intrigue.  The  trouble  with  the  well-made 
play  is  that  it  is  almost  always,  and  of  necessity, 
ill-made.  Very  rarely  does  the  playwright  succeed 
in  weaving  a  web  which  is  at  once  intricate,  con- 
sistent, and  clear.  In  nineteen  cases  out  of  twenty 
there  are  glaring  flaws  that  have  to  be  overlooked ; 
or  else  the  pattern  is  so  involved  that  the  mind's 
eye  cannot  follow  it,  and  becomes  bewildered  and 
fatigued.  A  classical  example  of  both  faults  may 
be  found  in  Congreve's  so-called  comedy  The 
Double-Dealer.  This  is,  in  fact,  a  powerful  drama, 
somewhat  in  the  Sardou  manner;  but  Congreve 
had  none  of  Sardou's  deftness  in  manipulating 
an  intrigue.  Maskwell  is  not  only  a  double-dealer, 
but  a  triple-  or  quadruple-dealer ;  so  that  the  brain 
soon  grows  dizzy  in  the  vortex  of  his  villainies. 
The  play,  it  may  be  noted,  was  a  failure. 

There  is  a  quite  legitimate  pleasure  to  be  found, 
no  doubt,  in  a  complex  intrigue  which  is  also  per- 
spicuous. Plays  such  as  Alexandre  Dumas's  Ma- 
demoiselle de  Belle-Isle,  or  the  pseudo-historical 
dramas  of  Scribe — Adrienne  Lecouvreur,  Bertrand 
et  Raton,  Un  Verre  d'Eau,  Les  Trois  Maupin,  etc. 
—  are  amusing  toys,  like  those  social  or  military 
tableaux,  the  figures  of  which  you  can  set  in  motion 
by  dropping  a  penny  in  the  slot.  But  the  trick 


214  PLAY-MAKING 

of  this  sort  of  "  preparation  "  has  long  been  found 
out,  and  even  unsophisticated  audiences  are  scarcely 
to  be  thrilled  by  it.  We  may  accept  it  as  a  sound 
principle,  based  on  common  sense  and  justified 
by  experience,  that  an  audience  should  neyerjt>e 
tempted  to  exclaim.  "  What  3  tnarwllnusly  c)eyer 
feUlbvTls  this,  playwrip-htf^Hnw  infinitely  cleverer 
than  the  dramatist  who  constructs  the  tragi-comedy 
of  life." 

This  is  what  we  inevitably  exclaim  as  we  watch 
Victorien  Sardou,  in  whom  French  ingenuity  cul- 
minated and  caricatured  itself,  laying  the  founda- 
tions of  one  of  his  labyrinthine  intrigues.  The 
absurdities  of  "preparation"  in  this  sense  could 
scarcely  be  better  satirized  than  in  the  following 
page  from  Francisque  Sarcey's  criticism  of  Nos 
Intimes  (known  in  English  as  Peril}  —  a  page 
which  is  intended,  not  as  satire,  but  as  eulogy  — 

At  the  sixth  performance,  I  met,  during  the  first 
interact,  a  man  of  infinite  taste  who  .  .  .  complained 
of  the  lengthinesses  of  this  first  act :  "  What  a  lot  of 
details."  he  said,  "  whichjserve  no  purpose^.and  had 
better  hayy  been  omitted !  "WnTt  is^the  use  of  that 
long  story  about  the  cactus  with  a  flower  that  is 
unique  in  all  the  world?  Why  trouble  us  with  that 
dahlia-root,  which  M.  Caussade's  neighbour  has 
thrown  over  the  garden  wall?  Was  it  necessary  to 
inflict  on  us  all  that  talk  about  the  fox  that  plays 
havoc  in  the  garden?  What  have  we  to  do  with 
that  mischievous  beast?  And  that  Tolozan,  with 
his  endless  digressions!  What  do  we  care  about  his 


PREPARATION:  THE  FINGER  POST    215 

ideas  on  love,  on  metempsychosis,  on  friendship,  etc.  ? 
All  this  stuff  only  retards  the  action."  "On  the 
contrary,"  I  replied,  "  all  this  is  just  what  is  going 
to  interest  you.  You  are  impatient  of  these  details, 
because  you  are  looking  out  for  the  scenes  of  pas- 
sion which  have  been  promised  you.  But  reflect  that, 
without  these  preparations,  the  scenes  of  passion 
would  not  touch  you.  That  cactus-flower  will  play 
its  part,  you  may  be  sure;  that  dahlia-root  is  not 
there  for  nothing;  that  fox  to  which  you  object, 
and  of  which  you  will  hear  more  talk  during  two 
more  acts,  will  bring  about  the  solution  of  one  of 
the  most  entertaining  situations  in  all  drama." 

M.  Sarcey  does  not  tell  us  what  his  interlocutor 
replied;  but  he  might  have  said,  like  the  hero  of 
Le  Reveillon:  "  Are  you  sure  there  is  no  mistake? 

>•»•»  <f  i    u       ,-—  -  '  "'"  **•*••'  in«.  -       *****  •        *"^ 

Are  you  defending  baroou,  or  attacking  him?  " 
For  another  example  of 


let  me  turn  to  a  play  byMr  SydneyGrundy, 
entitled  The  Degenerates.  Mr.  Grundy,  though  an 
adept  of  the  Scribe  school,  has  done  so  much 
strong  and  original  work  that  I  apologize  for 
exhuming  a  play  in  which  he  almost  burlesqued 
his  own  method;  but  for  that  very  reason  it  is 
difficult  to  find  a  more  convincing  or  more  deter- 
rent example  of  misdirected  ingenuity.  The  de- 
tails of  the  plot  need  not  be  recited.  It  is  sufficient 
to  say  that  the  curtain  has  not  been  raised  ten 
minutes  before  our  attention  has  been  drawn  to 
the  fact  that  a  certain  Lady  Saumarez  has  her 
monogram  on  everything  she  wears,  even  to  her 


2i6  PLAY-MAKING 

gloves:  whence  we  at  once  foresee  that  she  is 
destined  to  get  into  a  compromising  situation,  to 
escape  from  it,  but  to  leave  a  glove  behind  her. 
In  due  time  the  compromising  situation  arrives,  and 
we  find  that  it  not  only  requires  a  room  with  three 
doors,1  but  that  a  locksmith  has  to  be  specially 
called  in  to  provide  two  of  these  doors  with  peculiar 
locks,  so  that,  when  once  shut,  they  cannot  be 
opened  from  inside  except  with  a  key !  What  inter- 
est can  we  take  in  a  situation  turning  on  such  con- 
trivances ?  Sane  technic  laughs  at  locksmiths.  And 
after  all  this  preparation,  the  situation  proves  to 
be  a  familiar  trick  of  theatrical  thimble-rigging: 
you  lift  the  thimble,  and  instead  of  Pea  A,  behold 
Pea  B !  —  instead  of  Lady  Saumarez  it  is  Mrs. 
Trevelyan  who  is  concealed  in  Isidore  de  Lorano's 
bedroom.  Sir  William  Saumarez  must  be  an  ex- 
ceedingly simple-minded  person  to  accept  the  sub- 
stitution, and  exceedingly  unfamiliar  with  the 
French  drama  of  the  'seventies  and  'eighties.  If 
he  had  his  wits  about  him  he  would  say :  "  I  know 
this  dodge:  it  comes  from  Sardou.  Lady  Sau- 
marez has  just  slipped  out  by  that  door,  up  R.,  and 
if  I  look  about  I  shall  certainly  find  her  fan,  or 
her  glove,  or  her  handkerchief  somewhere  on  the 
premises."  The  author  may  object  that  such  criti- 
cism would  end  in  paralyzing  the  playwright,  and 
that,  if  men  always  profited  by  the  lessons  of  the 

1  There  is  no  special  harm  in  this :  the  question  of  exits 
and  entrances  and  their  mechanism  is  discussed  in  Chapter 
XXIII. 


PREPARATION:  THE  FINGER  POST     217 

stage,  the  world  would  long  ago  have  become  so 
wise  that  there  would  be  no  more  room  in  it  for 
drama,  which  lives  on  human  folly.  "  You  will 
tell  me  next,"  he  may  say,  "  that  I  must  not  make 
groundless  jealousy  the  theme  of  a  play,  because 
every  one  who  has  seen  Othello  would  at  once  de- 
tect the  machinations  of  an  lago!  "  The  retort  is 
logically  specious,  but  it  mistakes  the  point.  It 
would  certainly  be  rash  to  put  any  limit  to  human 
gullibility,  or  to  deny  that  Sir  William  Saumarez, 
in  the  given  situation,  might  conceivably  be  hood- 
winked. The  question  is  not  one  of  psychology 
but  of  theatrical  expediency:  and  the  point  is 
that  when  a  situation  is  at^once  Jiighly  improbable 
in  real  life  and  exceedingly  familiar  on jfee  stage. 
we  cannot  help  mgnjfllly  Caricaturing  it  as  it  pro- 
ceeds, and^are,  thus  prevented  from  lending  it  the 
provisional  credence  on  which  interest, and  emoiio.  n 
depend. 

An  instructive  contrast  to  The  Degenerates  may 
be  found  in  a  nearly  contemporary  play,  Mrs. 
Dane's  Defence,  by  Mr.  Henry  Arthur  Jones.  The 
first  three  acts  of  this  play  may  be  cited  as  an 
excellent  example  of  dexterous  preparation  and 
development.  Our  interest  in  the  sequence  of 
events  is  aroused,  sustained,  and  worked  up  to  a 
high  tension  with  consummate  skill.  There  is  no 
feverish  overcrowding  of  incident,  as  is  so  often 
the  case  in  the  great  French  story-plays  —  Adri- 
enne  Lecouvreur,  for  example,  or  Fedora.  The 
action  moves  onwards,  unhasting,  unresting,  and 


218  PLAY-MAKING 

the  finger-posts  are  placed  just  where  they  are 
wanted. 

The  observance  of  a  due  proportion  between 
preparation  and  result  is  a  matter  of  great  moment. 
Even  when  the  result  achieved  is  in  itself  very 
remarkable,  it  may  be  dearly  purchased  by  a  too 
long  and  too  elaborate  process  of  preparation.  A 
famous  play  which  is  justly  chargeable  with  this 
fault  is  The  Gay  Lord  Quex.  The  third  act  is 
certainly  one  of  the  most  breathlessly  absorbing 
scenes  in  modern  drama;  but  by  what  long,  and 
serpentine,  and  gritty  paths  do  we  not  approach  it ! 
The  elaborate  series  of  trifling  incidents  by  means 
of  which  Sophy  Fullgarney  is  first  brought  from 
New  Bond  Street  to  Fauncey  Court,  and  then  sub- 
stituted for  the  Duchess's  maid,  is  at  no  point 
actually  improbable;  and  yet  we  feel  that  a  vast 
effort  has  been  made  to  attain  an  end  which, 
owing  to  the  very  length  of  the  sequence  of  chances, 
at  last  assumes  an  air  of  improbability.  There  is 
little  doubt  that  the  substructure  of  the  great  scene 
might  have  been  very  much  simpler.  I  imagine 
that  Sir  Arthur  Pinero  was  betrayed  into  com- 
plexity and  over-elaboration  by  his  desire  to  use, 
as  a  background  for  his  action,  a  study  of  that 
"  curious  phase  of  modern  life,"  the  manicurist's 
parlour.  To  those  who  find  this  study  interesting, 
the  disproportion  between  preliminaries  and  result 
may  be  less  apparent.  It  certainly  did  not  inter- 
fere with  the  success  of  the  play  in  its  novelty; 
but  it  may  very  probably  curtail  its  lease  of  life. 
What  should  we  know  of  The  School  for  Scandal 


PREPARATION:  THE  FINGER  POST     219 

to-day,  if  it  consisted  of  nothing  but  the  Screen 
Scene  and  two  laborious  acts  of  preparation? 

A  too  obvious  preparation  is  very  apt  to  defeat 
its  end  by  begetting  a  perversely  quizzical  frame  of 
mind  in  the  audience.  The  desired  effect  is  dis- 
counted, like  a  conjuring  trick  in  which  the  mechan- 
ism is  too  transparent.  Let  me  recall  a  trivial  but 
instructive  instance  of  this  error.  The  occasion 
was  the  first  performance  of  Pillars  of  Society  at 
the  Gaiety  Theatre,  London  —  the  first  Ibsen  per- 
formance ever  given  in  England.  At  the  end  of 
the  third  act,  Krap,  Consul  Bernick's  clerk,  knocks 
at  the  door  of  his  master's  office  and  says,  "  It  is 
blowing  up  to  a  stiff  gale.  Is  the  Indian  Girl  to 
sail  in  spite  of  it  ?  "  Whereupon  Bernick,  though 
he  knows  that  the  Indian  Girl  is  hopelessly  unsea- 
worthy,  replies,  "  The  Indian  Girl  is  to  sail  in  spite 
of  it."  It  had  occurred  to  some  one  that  the  effect 
of  this  incident  would  be  heightened  if  Krap,  before 
knocking  at  the  Consul's  door,  were  to  consult  the 
barometer,  and  show  by  his  demeanour  that  it  was 
falling  rapidly.  A  barometer  had  accordingly  been 
hung,  up  stage,  near  the  veranda  entrance ;  and,  as 
the  scenic  apparatus  of  a  Gaiety  matinee  was  in 
those  days  always  of  the  scantiest,  it  was  practically 
the  one  decoration  of  a  room  otherwise  bare  almost 
to  indecency.  It  had  stared  the  audience  full  in 
the  face  through  three  long  acts;  and  when,  at 
the  end  of  the  third,  Krap  went  up  to  it  and  tapped 
it,  a  sigh  of  relief  ran  through  the  house,  as  much 
as  to  say,  "  At  last !  so  that  was  what  it  was  for ! '' 


220  PLAY-MAKING 

—  to  the  no  small  detriment  of  the  situation.  Here 
the  fault  lay  in  the  obtrusiveness  of-tfce  prepara- 
tion. Had  the  barometer  passed  practically  un- 
noticed among  the  other  details  of  a  well-furnished 
hall,  it  would  at  any  rate  have  been  innocent,  and 
perhaps  helpful.  As  it  was,  it  seemed  to  challenge 
the  curiosity  of  the  audience,  saying,  "  I  am  evi- 
dently here  with  some  intention ;  guess,  now,  what 
the  intention  can  be !  "  The  producer  had  failed  in 
the  art  which  conceals  art. 

Another  little  trait  from  a  play  of  those  far- 
past  days  illustrates  the  same  point.  It  was  a 
drawing-room  drama  of  the  Scribe  school.  Near 
the  beginning  of  an  act,  some  one  spilt  a  bottle 
of  red  ink,  and  mopped  it  up  with  his  (or  her) 
handkerchief,  leaving  the  handkerchief  on  the 
escritoire.  The  act  proceeded  from  scene  to  scene, 
and  the  handkerchief  remained  unnoticed;  but 
every  one  in  the  audience  who  knew  the  rules  of 
the  game,  kept  his  eye  on  the  escritoire,  and  was 
certain  that  that  ink  had  not  been  spilt  for  nothing. 
In  due  course  a  situation  of  great  intensity  was 
reached,  wherein  the  villain  produced  a  pistol  and 
fired  at  the  heroine,  who  fainted.  As  a  matter  of 
fact  he  had  missed  her ;  but  her  quick-witted  friend 
seized  the  gory  handkerchief,  and,  waving  it  in  the 
air,  persuaded  the  villain  that  the  shot  had  taken 
deadly  effect,  and  that  he  must  flee  for  his  life. 
Even  in  those  days,  such  an  unblushing  piece  of 
trickery  was  found  more  comic  than  impressive. 
It  was  a  case  of  preparation  "  giving  itself  away." 


PREPARATION:  THE  FINGER  POST     221 

A  somewhat  later  play,  The  Mummy  and  the 
Humming  Bird,  by  Mr.  Isaac  Henderson,  contains 
a  good  example  of  over-elaborate  preparation.  The 
Earl  of  Lumley,  lost  in  his  chemical  studies  with 
a  more  than  Newtonian  absorption,  suffers  his 
young  wife  to  form  a  sentimental  friendship  with 
a  scoundrel  of  an  Italian  novelist,  Signor  D'Orelli. 
Remaining  at  home  one  evening,  when  Lady  Lum- 
ley and  a  party  of  friends,  including  D'Orelli, 
have  gone  off  to  dine  at  a  restaurant,  the  Earl 
chances  to  look  out  of  the  window,  and  observes 
an  organ-grinder  making  doleful  music  in  the 
snow.  His  heart  is  touched,  and  he  invites  the 
music-monger  to  join  him  in  his  study  and  share 
his  informal  dinner.  The  conversation  between 
them  is  carried  on  by  means  of  signs,  for  the 
organ-grinder  knows  no  English,  and  the  Earl 
is  painfully  and  improbably  ignorant  of  Italian. 
He  does  not  even  know  that  Roma  means  Rome, 
and  Londra,  London.  This  ignorance,  however, 
is  part  of  the  author's  ingenuity.  It  leads  to  the 
establishment  of  a  sort  of  object-speech,  by  aid 
of  which  the  Earl  learns  that  his  guest  has  come 
to  England  to  prosecute  a  vendetta  against  the  man 
who  ruined  his  happy  Sicilian  home.  I  need 
scarcely  say  that  this  villain  is  none  other  than 
D'Orelli ;  and  when  at  last  he  and  the  Countess 
elope  to  Paris,  the  object-speech  enables  Giuseppe 
to  convey  to  the  Earl,  by  aid  of  a  brandy-bottle, 
a  syphon,  a  broken  plate,  and  half-a-crown,  not 
only  the  place  of  their  destination,  but  the  very 


222  PLAY-MAKING 

hotel  to  which  they  are  going.  This  is  a  fair 
example  of  that  ingenuity  for  ingenuity's  sake 
which  was  once  thought  the  very  essence  of  the 
playwright's  craft,  but  has  long  ago  lost  all  attrac- 
tion for  intelligent  audiences. 

We  may  take  jt  as  a  rule  that  a.ny  fif.fpg  whiph 
requires  an  obviously  purposeful  scenic  arrange- 
ment is  thereby  discounted.  It  may  be  strong 
enough  to  live  down  the  disadvantage;  but  a 
disadvantage  it  is  none  the  less.  In  a  play  of 
Mr.  Carton's,  The  Home  Secretary,  a  paper  of 
great  importance  was  known  to  be  contained  in  an 
official  despatch-box.  When  the  curtain  rose  on 
the  last  act,  it  revealed  this  despatch-box  on  a  table 
right  opposite  a  French  window,  while  at  the  other 
side  of  the  room  a  high-backed  arm-chair  discreetly 
averted  its  face.  Every  one  could  see  at  a  glance 
that  the  romantic  Anarchist  was  going  to  sneak 
in  at  the  window  and  attempt  to  abstract  the 
despatch-box,  while  the  heroine  was  to  lie  perdue 
in  the  high-backed  chair;  and  when,  at  the  fated 
moment,  all  this  punctually  occurred,  one  could 
scarcely  repress  an  "  Ah !  "  of  sarcastic  satisfaction. 
Similarly,  in  an  able  play  named  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Daventry,  Mr.  Frank  Harris  had  conceived  a  situ- 
ation which  required  that  the  scene  should  be 
specially  built  for  eavesdropping.1  As  soon  as  the 

1  This  might  be  said  of  the  scene  of  the  second  act  of 
The  Benefit  of  the  Doubt;  but  here  the  actual  stage-topog- 
raphy is  natural  enough.  The  author,  however,  is  rather 
over-anxious  to  emphasize  the  acoustic  relations  of  the  two 


PREPARATION:  THE  FINGER  POST     223 

curtain  rose,  and  revealed  a  screen  drawn  half- 
way down  the  stage,  with  a  sofa  ensconced  behind 
it,  we  knew  what  to  expect.  Of  course  Mrs. 
Daventry  was  to  lie  on  the  sofa  and  overhear  a 
duologue  between  her  husband  and  his  mistress: 
the  only  puzzle  was  to  understand  why  the  guilty 
pair  should  neglect  the  precaution  of  looking  be- 
hind the  screen.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  Mrs.  Daven- 
try, before  she  lay  down,  switched  off  the  lights, 
and  Daventry  and  Lady  Langham,  finding  the  room 
dark,  assumed  it  to  be  empty.  With  astounding 
foolhardiness,  considering  that  the  house  was  full 
of  guests,  and  this  a  much-frequented  public  room, 
Daventry  proceeded  to  lock  the  door,  and  continue 
his  conversation  with  Lady  Langham  in  the  fire- 
light. Thus,  when  the  lady's  husband  came  knock- 
ing at  the  door,  Mrs.  Daventry  was  able  to  rescue 
the  guilty  pair  from  an  apparently  hopeless  pre- 
dicament, by  calmly  switching  on  the  lights  and 
opening  the  door  to  Sir  John  Langham.  The  situ- 
ation was  undoubtedly  a  "  strong  "  one ;  but  the 
tendency  of  modern  technic  is  to  hold  "  strength  " 
too  dearly  purchased  at  such  reckless  expense  of 
preparation. 

There  are,  then,  very  Hpar  limits  {n  ^p  validity 
of  the  Dumas  maxim  that  "  The  art  of  the  theatre 
is  the  art  of  preparations."  Certain  it  is  tha{  over- 
prep^ra.tjna  i<^  fli^  mr>«tf  fcta.1  of  errors.  The  clum- 
siest tfrit\g-  a  dramatist  can  possibly  do  is  to  lay 
a  long1  and  elalporate  train  for  the  ignition  of 
a  squib.  We  take  pleasure  in  an  event  which  has 


224  PLAY-MAKING 

been  "  prepared  "  in  the  sense  that  we  have  been 
led  to  desire  jt,  and  have  wondered  how  it  was  to 
be  brought  about.  But  we  scoff  at  an  occurrence 
which  nothing  but  our  knowledge  of  the  tricks  of 
the  stage  could  possibly  lead  us  to  expect,  yet 
which,  knowing  these  tricks,  we  have  foreseen  f rocn 
afar,  and  resented  in  advance. 


XIII 
THE   OBLIGATORY    SCENE 

I  DO  not  know  whether  it  was  Francisque  Sarcey 
who  invented  the  phrase  sceqe  g,  faire:  but  it 
certainly  owes  its  currency  to  that  valiant  champion 
of  the  theatrical  theatre,  if  I  may  so  express  it. 
Note  that  in  this  term  I  intend  no  disrespect.  My 
conception  of  the  theatrical  theatre  may  not  be  ex- 
actly the  same  as  M.  Sarcey's;  but  at  all  events 
I  share  his  abhorrence  of  the  untheatrical  theatre. 

What  is  the  scene  a  fairef  Sarcey  has  used  the 
phrase  so  often,  and  in  so  many  contexts,  that  it 
is  impossible  to  tie  him  down  to  any  strict  defi- 
nition. Instead  of  trying  to  do  so,  I  will  give 
a  typical  example  of  the  way  in  which  he  usually 
employs  the  term. 

In  Les  Fourchambault,  by  Emile  Augier,  the  first 
act  introduces  us  to  the  household  of  a  merchant, 
of  Havre,  who  has  married  a  wealthy,  but  extrava- 
gant woman,  and  has  a  son  and  daughter  who  are 
being  gradually  corrupted  by  their  mother's  worldli- 
ness.  We  learn  that  Fourchambault,  senior,  has, 
in  his  youth,  betrayed  a  young  woman  who  was 
a  governess  in  his  family.  He  wanted  to  marry 
her,  but  his  relations  maligned  her  character,  and 
he  cast  her  off ;  nor  does  he  know  what  has  become 
225 


226  PLAY-MAKING 

of  her  and  her  child.  In  the  second  act  we  pass 
to  the  house  of  an  energetic  and  successful  young 
shipowner  named  Bernard,  who  lives  alone  with 
his  mother.  Bernard,  as  we  divine,  is  secretly  de- 
voted to  a  young  lady  named  Marie  Letellier,  a 
guest  in  the  Fourchambault  house,  to  whom  young 
Leopold  Fourchambault  is  paying  undesirable  at- 
tentions. One  day  Bernard  casually  mentions  to 
his  mother  that  the  house  of  Fourchambault  is 
on  the  verge  of  bankruptcy;  nothing  less  than  a 
quarter  of  a  million  francs  will  enable  it  to  tide 
over  the  crisis.  Mme.  Bernard,  to  her  son's  as- 
tonishment, begs  him  to  lend  the  tottering  firm 
the  sum  required.  He  objects  that,  unless  the  busi- 
ness is  better  managed,  the  loan  will  only  postpone 
the  inevitable  disaster.  "  Well,  then,  my  son,"  she 
replied,  "  you  must  go  into  partnership  with  M. 
Fourchambault."  "  I !  with  that  imbecile !  "  he  ex- 
claims. "  My  son,"  she  says,  gravely,  and  em- 
phatically, "  you  must  —  it  is  your  duty  —  I  de- 
mand it  of  you!"  "Ah!"  cries  Bernard.  "I 
understand  —  he  is  my  father !  " 

After  ecstatically  lauding  this  situation  and  the 
scenes  which  have  led  up  to  it,  M.  Sarcey 
continues  — 

When  the  curtain  falls  upon  the  words  "  He  is  my 
father,"  I  at  once  see  two  scenes  d  faire,  and  I  know 
that  they  will  be  faites:  the  scene  between  the  son 
and  the  father  whom  he  is  to  save,  the  scene  between 
Bernard  and  his  half-brother  Leopold,  who  are  in 
love  with  the  same  woman,  the  one  dishonourably 


THE    OBLIGATORY    SCENE        227 

and  the  other  secretly  and  nobly.  What  will  they 
say  to  each  other?  I  have  no  idea.  But  it  is  pre- 
cisely this  expectation  mingled  with  uncertainty  that 
is  one  of  the  charms  of  the  theatre.  I  say  to  myself, 
"  Ah,  they  will  have  an  encounter  !  What  will  come 
of  it?"  And  that  this  is  the  state  of  mind  of  the 
whole  audience  is  proved  by  the  fact  that  when  the 
two  characters  of  the  scene  a  faire  stand  face  to  face, 
a  thrill  of  anticipation  runs  round  the  whole  theatre. 

This,  then,  is  the  obligatory  scene  as  Sarcey 
generally  understands  it  —  a  scene  which,  for  one 
reason  or  another,  an  audienc.q  expects  ^nd  ar- 
dently desires.  I  have  italicized  the  phrase  "  ex- 
pectation mingled  with  uncertainty  "  because  it 
expresses  in  other  terms  the  idea  which  I  have 
sought  to  convey  in  the  formula  "  foreshadowing 
without  forestalling."  But  before  we  can  judge 
of  the  merits  of  M.  Sarcey's  theory,  we  must  look 
into  it  a  little  more  closely.  I  shall  try,  then,  to 
state  it  in  my  own  words,  in  what  I  believe  to  be 
its  most  rational  and  defensible  form.  ,, 

An  obligatory  scene  is  one  which  the  audience    **-£*•*• 
(more"  or  less  clearly  and  consciously)    foresees 
and  desires,  and  the  absence  of  which  it  may  with 
On  a  rough  analysis,  it  will  appear, 


I  think,  that  there  are  five  ways  in  which  a  scene 
may  become,  in  this  sense,  obligatory  :  — 

(  i  )  It  may  be  necessitated  by  the  inherent  logic 
of  the  theme. 

(27~"ltrriay  be  demanded  by  the  manifest  ex- 
igencies of  specifically  dramatic  effect. 


228  PLAY-MAKING 

(3)  The  author  himself  may  have  rendered  it  ob- 
ligatory by  seeming  unmistakably  to  lead  up  to  it. 

(4)  It  may  be  required  in  order  to  justify  some 
modification  of  character  or  alteration  of  will,  too 
important  to  be  taken  for  granted. 

(5)  It  may  be  imposed  by  history  or  legend. 
These  five  classes  of  obligatory  scenes  may  be 

docketed,  respectively,  as  the  Logical,  the  Dra- 
matic, the  Structural,  the  Psychological,  and  the 
Historic.  M.  Sarcey  generally  employed  the  term 
in  one  of  the  first  three  senses,  without  clearly 
distinguishing  between  them.  It  is,  indeed,  not 
always  easy  to  determine  whether  the  compulsion 
(assuming  it  to  exist  at  all)  lies  in  the  very  es- 
sence of  the  theme  or  situation,  or  only  in  the 
author's  manipulation  of  it. 

Was  Sarcey  right  in  assuming  such  a  compul- 
sion to  be  a  constant  and  dominant  factor  in  the 
playwright's  craft?  I  think  we  shall  see  reason 
to  believe  him  right  in  holding  that  it  frequently 
arises,  but  wrong  if  he  went  the  length  of  main- 
taining that  there  can  be  no  good  play  without  a 
definite  scene  a  faire  —  as  eighteenth-century  land- 
scape painters  are  said  to  have  held  that  no  one 
could  be  a  master  of  his  art  till  he  knew  where  to 
place  "  the  brown  tree."  I  remember  no  passage  in 
which  Sarcey  explicitly  lays  down  so  hard  and  fast 
a  rule,  but  several  in  which  he  seems  to  take  it  for 
granted.1 

1  For  example,  in  his  criticism  of  Becque's  La  Parisienne 
(Quarante  Ans  de  Thtatre,  VI,  p.  364),  he  tells  how,  at  the 


THE   OBLIGATORY   SCENE        229 

It  may  be  asked  whether  —  and  if  so,  why  —  the 
theory  of  the  obligatory  scene  holds  good  for  the 
dramatist  and  not  for  the  novelist?  Perhaps  it 
has  more  application  to  the  novel  than  is  commonly 
supposed;  but  in  so  far  as  it  applies  peculiarly  to 
the  drama,  the  reason  is  pretty  clear.  It  lies  in 
the  strict  concentration  imposed  on  the  dramatist, 
and  the  high  mental  tension  which  is,  or  ought  to 
be,  characteristic  of  the  theatrical  audience.  The 
leisurely  and  comparatively  passive  novel-reader 
may  never  miss  a  scene  which  an  audience,  with 
its  instincts  of  logic  and  of  economy  keenly  alert, 
may  feel  to  be  inevitable.  The  dramatist  is  .bound 
to  extract  from  his  material  the  last  particle  of 
that  particular  order  oT^effect  which  the  stage, 
and  the  stage  alone,  can  give  us.  If  he  fails  to  do 
sdTwe  feel  that  there  has  been  no  adequate  justi- 
fication for  setting  in  motion  all  the  complex 
mechanism  of  the  theatre.  His  play  is  like  a  badly- 
designed  engine  in  which  a  large  part  of  the  poten- 
tial energy  is  dissipated  to  no  purpose.  The 

end  of  the  second  act,  one  of  his  neighbours  said  to^  him, 
"  Eh !  bien,  vous  voila  bien  attrape !  Ou  est  la  scene  a 
faire?"  "I  freely  admit,"  he  continues,  "that  there  is  no 
scene  a  faire;  if  there  had  been  no  third  act  I  should  not 
have  been  greatly  astonished.  When  you  make  it  your 
business  to  recite  on  the  stage  articles  from  the  Vie  Pari- 
sienne,  it  makes  no  difference  whether  you  stop  at  the  end 
of  the  second  article  or  at  the  end  of  the  third."  This 
clearly  implies  that  a  play  in  which  there  is  no  scene  a  faire 
is  nothing  but  a  series  of  newspaper  sketches.  Becque,  one 
fancies,  might  have  replied  that  the  scene  between  Clotilde 
and  Monsieur  Simpson  at  the  beginning  of  Act  III  was  pre- 
cisely the  scene  a  faire  demanded  by  the  logic  of  his 
cynicism. 


23o  PLAY-MAKING 

novelist,  with  a  far  wider  range  of  effects  at  his 
command,  and  employing  no  special  mechanism 
to  bring  them  home  to  us,  is  much  more  free  to 
select  and  to  reject.  He  is  exempt  from  the  law 
of  rigid  economy  to  which  the  dramatist  must 
submit.  Far  from  being  bound  to  do  things  in 
the  most  dramatic  way,  he  often  does  wisely  in  re- 
jecting that  course,  as  unsuited  to  his  medium. 
Fundamentally,  no  doubt,  the  same  principle  ap- 
plies to  both  arts,  but  with  a  wholly  different 
stringency  in  the  case  of  the  drama.  "  Advisable  " 
in  the  novelist's  vocabulary  is  translated  by  "  im- 
perative "  in  the  dramatist's.  The  one  is  playing 
a  long-drawn  game,  in  which  the  loss  of  a  trick 
or  two  need  not  prove  fatal ;  the  other  has  staked 
his  all  on  a  single  rubber. 

Obligatory  scenes  of  the  first  type  —  those  neces- 
sitated by  the  inherent  logic  of  the  theme  — j:an 
naturally  arise  only  in  plays  to  which  a  fjefiflfre 
tfiemeTcar^  be  assigned.  If  we  say  that  woman's 
cTSmTto  possess  a  soul  of  her  own,  even  in  mar- 
riage, is  the  theme  of  A  Doll's  House,  then  evi- 
dently the  last  great  balancing  of  accounts  between 
Nora  and  Helmer  is  an  obligatory  scene.  It  would 
have  been  quite  possible  for  Ibsen  to  have  com- 
pleted the  play  without  any  such  scene:  he  might, 
for  instance,  have  let  Nora  fulfil  her  intention  of 
drowning  herself ;  but  in  that  case  his  play  would 
have  been  merely  a  tragic  anecdote  with  the  point 
omitted.  We  should  have  felt  vague  intimations 


THE   OBLIGATORY    SCENE        231 

of  a  general  idea  hovering  in  the  air,  but  it  would 
have  remained  undefined  and  undeveloped.  As 
we  review,  however,  the  series  of  Ibsen's  plays,  and 
notice  how  difficult  it  is  to  point  to  any  individual 
scene  and  say,  "  This  was  clearly  the  scene  a  faire," 
we  feel  that,  though  the  phrase  may  express  a 
useful  idea  in  a  conveniently  brief  form,  there  is 
no  possibility  of  making  the  presence  or  absence 
of  a  scene  a  faire  a  general  test  of  dramatic  merit. 
In  The  Wild  Duck,  who  would  not  say  that,  the- 
oretically, the  scene  in  which  Gregers  opens  Hial- 
mar's  eyes  to  the  true  history  of  his  marriage  was 
obligatory  in  the  highest  degree?  Yet  Ibsen,  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  does  not  present  it  to  us :  he  sends 
the  two  men  off  for  "  a  long  walk  "  together :  and 
who  does  not  feel  that  this  is  a  stroke  of  con- 
summate art?  In  Rosmersholm,  as  we  know,  he 
has  been  accused  of  neglecting,  not  merely  the 
scene,  but  the  play,  a  faire;  but  who  will  now  main- 
tain that  accusation?  In  John  Gabriel  Borkman, 
if  we  define  the  theme  as  the  clash  of  two  devour- 
ing egoisms,  Ibsen  has,  in  the  third  act,  given  us 
the  obligatory  scene;  but  he  has  done  it,  unfor- 
tunately, with  an  enfeebled  hand;  whereas  the 
first  and  second  acts,  though  largely  expository, 
and  even  (in  the  Foldal  scene)  episodic,  rank  with 
his  greatest  achievements. 

For  abundant  examples  of  scenes  rendered  obli- 
gatory by  the  logic  of  the  theme,  we  have  only 
to  turn  to  the  works  of  those  remorseless  dialec- 
ticians, MM.  Hervieu  and  Brieux._  In  such  a 


232  PLAY-MAKING 

play  as  La  Course  du  Flambeau,  there  is  scarcely 
a  scene  that  may  not  be  called  an  obligatory  de- 
duction from  the  thesis  duly  enunciated,  with  no 
small  parade  of  erudition,  in  the  first  ten  minutes 
of  the  play.  It  is  that,  in  handing  on  the  vita'i 
lampada,  as  Plato  and  "  le  bon  poete  Lucrece  " 
express  it,  the  love  of  the  parent  for  the  child 
becomes  a  devouring  mania,  to  which  everything 
else  is  sacrificed,  while  the  love  of  the  child  for 
the  parent  is  a  tame  and  essentially  selfish  emotion, 
absolutely  powerless  when  it  comes  into  compe- 
tition with  the  passions  which  are  concerned  with 
the  transmission  of  the  vital  flame.  This  theorem 
having  been  stated,  what  is  *  the  first  obligatory 
scene?  Evidently  one  in  which  a  mother  shall 
refuse  a  second  marriage,  with  a  man  whom  she 
loves,  because  it  would  injure  the  prospects  and 
wound  the  feelings  of  her  adored  daughter.  Then, 
when  the  adored  daughter  herself  marries,  the 
mother  must  make  every  possible  sacrifice  for  her, 
and  the  daughter  must  accept  them  all  with  in- 
difference, as  mere  matters  of  course.  But  what 
is  the  final,  triumphant  proof  of  the  theorem? 
Why,  of  course,  the  mother  must  kill  her  mother 
to  save  the  daughter's  life!  And  this  ultra-obliga- 
tory scene  M.  Hervieu  duly  serves  up  to  us.  Marie- 
Jeanne  (the  daughter)  is  ordered  to  the  Engadine; 
Sabine  (the  mother)  is  warned  that  Madame  Fon- 
tenais  (the  grandmother)  must  not  go  to  that 
altitude  on  pain  of  death ;  but,  by  a  series  of  vio- 
lently artificial  devices,  things  are  so  arranged  that 


THE   OBLIGATORY    SCENE        233 

Marie-Jeanne  cannot  go  unless  Madame  Fontenais 
goes  too;  and  Sabine,  rather  than  endanger  her 
daughter's  recovery,  does  not  hesitate  to  let  her 
mother  set  forth,  unwittingly,  to  her  doom.  In 
the  last  scene  of  all,  Marie-Jeanne  light-heartedly 
prepares  to  leave  her  mother  and  go  off  with  her 
husband  to  the  ends  of  the  earth;  Sabine  learns 
that  the  man  she  loved  and  rejected  for  Marie- 
Jeanne's  sake  is  for  ever  lost  to  her;  and,  to  com- 
plete the  demonstration,  Madame  Fontenais  falls 
dead  at  her  feet.  These  scenes  are  unmistakably 
scenes  a  faire,  dictated  by  the  logic  of  the  theme; 
but  they  belong  to  a  conception  of  art  in  which  the 
free  rhythms  of  life'  are  ruthlessly  sacrificed  to  the 
needs  of  a  demonstration.  Obligatory  scenes  of 
this  order  are  mere  diagrams  drawn  with  ruler 
and  compass  —  the  obligatory  illustrations  of  an 
extravagantly  over-systematic  lecture. 

M.  Brieux  in  some  of  his  plays  (not  in  all)  is  no 
less  logic-ridden  than  M.  Hervieu.  Take,  for  in- 
stance, Les  Trois  Filles  de  M.  Dupont:  every  char- 
acter is  a  term  in  a  syllogism,  every  scene  is  dic- 
tated by  an  imperious  craving  for  symmetry.  The 
main  theorem  may  be  stated  in  some  such  terms 
as  these :  "  The  French  marriage  system  is  immoral 
and  abominable;  yet  the  married  woman  is,  on 
the  whole,  less  pitiable  than  her  unmarried  sisters." 
In  order  to  prove  this  thesis  in  due  form,  we  begin 
at  the  beginning,  and  show  how  the  marriage  of 
Antonin  Mairaut  and  Julie  Dupont  is  brought  about 
by  the  dishonest  cupidity  of  the  parents  on  both 


234  PLAY-MAKING 

sides.  Tbe  Duponts  flatter  themselves  that  they 
have  cheated  the  Mairauts,  the  Mairauts  that  they 
have  swindled  the  Duponts;  while  Antonin  delib- 
erately simulates  artistic  tastes  to  deceive  Julie, 
and  Julie  as  deliberately  makes  a  show  of  business 
capacity  in  order  to  take  in  Antonin.  Every  scene 
between  father  and  daughter  is  balanced  by  a  corre- 
sponding scene  between  mother  and  son.  Every 
touch  of  hypocrisy  on  the  one  side  is  scrupulously 
set  off  against  a  trait  of  dishonesty  on  the  other. 
Julie's  passion  for  children  is  emphasized,  Antonin's 
aversion  from  them  is  underlined.  But  lest  he 
should  be  accused  of  seeing  everything  in  black, 
M.  Brieux  will  not  make  the  parents  altogether 
detestable.  Still  holding  the  balance  true,  he  lets 
M.  Mairaut  on  the  one  side,  and  Madame  Dupont 
on  the  other,  develop  amiable  impulses,  and  protest, 
at  a  given  moment,  against  the  infamies  committed 
and  countenanced  by  their  respective  spouses.  And 
in  the  second  and  third  acts,  the  edifice  of  deception 
symmetrically  built  up  in  the  first  act  is  no  less 
symmetrically  demolished.  The  parents  expose 
and  denounce  each  other's  villainies;  Julie  and 
Antonin,  in  a  great  scene  of  conjugal  recrimination, 
lay  bare  the  hypocrisies  of  allurement  that  have 
brought  them  together.  Julie  then  determines  to 
escape  from  the  loathsome  prison-house  of  her 
marriage;  and  this  brings  us  to  the  second  part 
of  the  theorem.  The  title  shows  that  Julie  has  two 
sisters;  but  hitherto  they  have  remained  in  the 
background.  Why  do  they  exist  at  all  ?  Why  has 


THE   OBLIGATORY    SCENE        235 

Providence  blessed  M.  Dupont  with  "  three  fair 
daughters  and  no  more  "  ?  Because  Providence 
foresaw  exactly  the  number  M.  Brieux  would  re- 
quire for  his  demonstration.  Are  there  not  three 
courses  open  to  a  penniless  woman  in  our  social 
system  —  marriage,  wage-earning  industry,  and 
wage-earning  profligacy?  Well,  M.  Dupont  must 
have  one  daughter  to  represent  each  of  these  con- 
tingencies. Julie  has  illustrated  the  miseries  of 
marriage;  Caroline  and  Angele  shall  illustrate  re- 
spectively the  still  greater  miseries  of  unmarried 
virtue  and  unmarried  vice.  When  Julie  declares 
her  intention  of  breaking  away  from  the  house  of 
bondage,  her  sisters  rise  up  symmetrically,  one  on 
either  hand,  and  implore  her  rather  to  bear  the  ills 
she  has  than  fly  to  others  that  she  knows  not  of. 
"  Symmetry  of  symmetries,  all  is  symmetry  "  in  the 
poetics  of  M.  Brieux.  But  life  does  not  fall  into 
such  obvious  patterns.  The  obligatory  scene  which 
is  imposed  upon  us,  not  by  the  logic  of  life,  but 
by  the  logic  of  demonstration,  is  not  a  scene  a  faire, 
but  a  scene  a  fuir. 

Mr.  Bernard  Shaw,  in  some  sense  the  Brieux  of 
the  English  theatre,  is  not  a  man  to  be  dominated 
by  logic,  or  by  anything  else  under  the  sun.  He 
has,  however,  given  us  one  or  two  excellent  ex- 
amples of  the  obligatory  scene  in  the  true  and  really 
artistic  sense  of  the  term.  The  scene  of  Candida's 
choice  between  Eugene  and  Morell  crowns  the  edi- 
fice of  Candida  as  nothing  else  could.  Given  the 
characters  and  their  respective  attitudes  towards 


236  PLAY-MAKING 

life,  this  sententious  thrashing-out  of  the  situation 
was  inevitable.  So,  too,  in  Mrs.  Warren's  Pro- 
fession, the  great  scene  of  the  second  act  between 
Vivie  and  her  mother  is  a  superb  example  of  a 
scene  imposed  by  the  logic  of  the  theme.  On  the 
other  hand,  in  Mr.  Henry  Arthur  Jones's  finely  con- 
ceived, though  unequal,  play,  Michael  and  his  Lost 
Angel,  we  miss  what  was  surely  an  obligatory 
scene.  The  play  is  in  fact  a  contest  between  the 
paganism  of  Audrie  Lesden  and  the  ascetic,  sacer- 
dotal idealism  of  Michael  Feversham.  In  the  sec- 
ond act,  paganism  snatches  a  momentary  victory; 
and  we  confidently  expect,  in  the  third  act,  a  set 
and  strenuous  effort  on  Audrie's  part  to  break 
down  in  theory  the  ascetic  ideal  which  has  col- 
lapsed in  practice.  It  is  probable  enough  that  she 
might  not  succeed  in  dragging  her  lover  forth  from 
what  she  regards  as  the  prison-house  of  a  super- 
stition; but  the  logic  of  the  theme  absolutely  de- 
mands that  she  should  make  the  attempt.  Mr. 
Jones  has  preferred  to  go  astray  after  some  com- 
paratively irrelevant  and  commonplace  matter,  and 
has  thus  left  his  play  incomplete.  So,  too,  in  The 
Triumph  of  the  Philistines,  Mr.  Jones  makes  the 
mistake  of  expecting  us  to  take  a  tender  interest  in 
a  pair  of  lovers  who  have  had  never  a  love-scene 
to  set  our  interest  agoing.  They  are  introduced  to 
each  other  in  the  first  act,  and  we  shrewdly  suspect 
(for  in  the  theatre  we  are  all  inveterate  match- 
makers) that  they  are  going  to  fall  in  love;  but 
we  have  not  the  smallest  positive  evidence  of  the 


THE   OBLIGATORY    SCENE        237 

fact  before  we  find,  in  the  second  act,  that  mis- 
understandings have  arisen,  and  the  lady  declines 
to  look  at  the  gentleman.  The  actress  who  played 
the  part  at  the  St.  James's  Theatre  was  blamed 
for  failing  to  enlist  our  sympathies  in  this  ro- 
mance; but  what  actress  can  make  much  of  a 
love  part  which,  up  to  the  very  last  moment,  is 
all  suspicion  and  jealousy?  Fancy  Romeo  and 
Juliet  with  the  love-scenes  omitted,  "  by  special 
request ! " 

In  a  second  class,  according  to  our  analysis,  we 
place  the  obligatory  scene  which  is  imposed  by 
"  the  manifest  exigencies  of  specifically  dramatic 
effect."  Here  it  must  of  course  be  noted  that 
the  conception  of  "  specifically  dramatic  effect " 
varies  in  some  degree,  from  age  to  age,  from 
generation  to  generation,  and  even,  one  may  almost 
say,  from  theatre  to  theatre.  Scenes  of  violence 
and  slaughter  were  banished  from  the  Greek  the- 
atre, mainly,  no  doubt,  because  rapid  movement 
was  rendered  difficult  by  the  hieratic  trappings  of 
the  actors,  and  was  altogether  foreign  to  the  spirit 
of  tragedy;  but  it  can  scarcely  be  doubted  that 
the  tragic  poets  were  the  less  inclined  to  rebel 
against  this  convention,  because  they  extracted 
"  specifically  dramatic  effects  "  of  a  very  high  order 
out  of  their  "  messenger-scenes."  Even  in  the 
modern  theatre  we  are  thrilled  by  the  description 
of  Hippolytus  dragged  at  his  own  chariot  wheel, 
or  Creusa  and  Creon  devoured  by  Medea's  veil  of 


238  PLAY-MAKING 

fire.1  On  the  Elizabethan  stage,  the  murder  of 
Agamemnon  would  no  doubt  have  been  "  sub- 
jected to  our  faithful  eyes  "  like  the  blinding  of 
Gloucester  or  the  suffocation  of  Edward  II;  but 
who  shall  say  that  there  is  less  "  specifically  dra- 
matic effect "  in  Aeschylus's  method  of  mirroring 
the  scene  in  the  clairvoyant  ecstasy  of  Cassandra? 
I  am  much  inclined  to  think  that  the  dramatic 
effect  of  highly  emotional  narrative  is  underrated 
in  the  modern  theatre. 

Again,  at  one  class  of  theatre,  the  author  of 
a  sporting  play  is  bound  to  exhibit  a  horse-race 
on  the  stage,  or  he  is  held  to  have  shirked  his 
obligatory  scene.  At  another  class  of  theatre,  we 
shall  have  a  scene,  perhaps,  in  a  box  in  the  Grand 
Stand,  where  some  Lady  Gay  Spanker  shall  breath- 
lessly depict,  from  start  to  finish,  the  race  which  is 
visible  to  her,  but  invisible  to  the  audience.  At 
a  third  class  of  the  theatre,  the  "  specifically  dra- 
matic effect "  to  be  extracted  from  a  horse-race 
is  found  in  a  scene  in  a  Black-Country  slum,  where 
a  group  of  working-men  and  women  are  feverishly 
awaiting  the  evening  paper  which  shall  bring  them 
the  result  of  the  St.  Leger,  involving  for  some 
of  them  opulence  —  to  the  extent,  perhaps,  of  a 
£5  note  —  and  for  others  ruin.2 

The  difficulty  of  deciding  that  any  one  form  of 
scene  is  predestined  by  the  laws  of  dramatic  effect 

1  I  need  scarcely  direct  the  reader's  attention  to  Mr.  Gil- 
bert Murray's  noble  renderings  of  these  speeches. 

1  Such  a  scene  occurs  in  that  very  able  play,  The  Way 
-the  Money  Goes,  by  Lady  Bell. 


THE    OBLIGATORY    SCENE        239 

is  illustrated  in  Tolstoy's  grisly  drama,  The  Power 
of  Darkness.  The  scene  in  which  Nikita  kills 
Akoulina's  child  was  felt  to  be  too  horrible  for 
representation;  whereupon  the  author  wrote  an 
alternative  scene  between  Mitritch  and  Anna,  which 
passes  simultaneously  with  the  murder  scene,  in  an 
adjoining  room.  The  two  scenes  fulfil  exactly  the 
same  function  in  the  economy  of  the  play;  it  can 
be  acted  with  either  of  them,  it  might  be  acted 
with  both;  and  it  is  impossible  to  say  which  pro- 
duces the  intenser  or  more  "  specifically  dramatic 
effect." 

The  fact  remains,  however,  that  there  is  almost 
always  a  dramatic  and  undramatic,  a  more  dra- 
matic and  a  less  dramatic,  way  of  doing  a  thing; 
and  an  author  who  allows  us  to  foresee  and  expect 
a  dramatic  way  of  attaining  a  given  end,  and  then 
chooses  an  undramatic  or  less  dramatic  way,  is 
guilty  of  having  missed  the  obligatory  scene.  For 
a  general  discussion  of  what  we  mean  by  the  terms 
"  dramatic  "  and  "  undramatic  "  the  reader  may 
refer  back  to  Chapter  III.  Here  I  need  only  give 
one  or  two  particular  illustrations. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  one  of  the  scenes  & 
faire  which  M.  Sarcey  foresaw  in  Les  Fourcham- 
bault  was  the  encounter  between  the  two  brothers ; 
the  illegitimate  Bernard  and  the  legitimate  Leopold. 
It  would  have  been  quite  possible,  and  quite  natural, 
to  let  the  action  of  the  play  work  itself  out  without 
any  such  encounter;  or  to  let  the  encounter  take 
place  behind  the  scenes ;  but  this  would  have  been 


240  PLAY-MAKING 

a  patent  ignoring  of  dramatic  possibilities,  and  M. 
Sarcey  would  have  had  ample  reason  to  pour  the 
vials  of  his  wrath  on  Augier's  head.  He  was  right, 
however,  in  his  confidence  that  Augier  would  not 
fail  to  "  make "  the  scene.  And  how  did  he 
"  make  "  it  ?  The  one  thing  inevitable  about  it 
was  that  the  truth  should  be  revealed  to  Leopold ; 
but  there  were  a  dozen  different  ways  in  which  that 
might  have  been  effected.  Perhaps,  in  real  life, 
Bernard  would  have  said  something  to  this  effect: 
"  Young  man,  you  are  making  questionable  ad- 
vances to  a  lady  in  whom  I  am  interested.  I  beg 
that  you  will  cease  to  persecute  her;  and  if  you 
ask  by  what  right  I  do  so,  I  reply  that  I  am  in  fact 
your  elder  brother,  that  I  have  saved  our  father 
from  ruin,  that  I  am  henceforth  the  predominant 
partner  in  his  business,  and  that,  if  you  do  not  be- 
have yourself,  I  shall  see  that  your  allowance  is 
withdrawn,  and  that  you  have  no  longer  the  means 
to  lead  an  idle  and  dissolute  life."  This  would 
have  been  an  ungracious  but  not  unnatural  way  of 
going  about  the  business.  Had  Augier  chosen  it, 
we  should  have  had  no  right  to  complain  on  the 
score  of  probability;  but  it  would  have  been  evi- 
dent to  the  least  imaginative  that  he  had  left  the 
specifically  dramatic  opportunities  of  the  scene  en- 
tirely undeveloped.  Let  us  now  see  what  he 
actually  did.  Marie  Letellier,  compromised  by 
Leopold's  conduct,  has  left  the  Fourchambault 
house  and  taken  refuge  with  Mme.  Bernard.  Ber- 
nard loves  her  devotedly,  but  does  not  dream  that 


THE   OBLIGATORY    SCENE    -   241 

she  can  see  anything  in  his  uncouth  personality, 
and  imagines  that  she  loves  Leopold.  Accordingly, 
he  determines  that  Leopold  shall  marry  her,  and 
tells  him  so.  Leopold  scoffs  at  the  idea;  Bernard 
insists;  and  little  by  little  the  conflict  rises  to  a 
tone  of  personal  altercation.  At  last  Leopold  says 
something  slighting  of  Mile.  Letellier,  and  Bernard 
^ —  who,  be  it  noted,  has  begun  with  no  intention  of 
revealing  the  kinship  between  them  —  loses  his 
self-control  and  cries,  "  Ah,  there  speaks  the  blood 
of  the  man  who  slandered  a  woman  in  order  to 
prevent  his  son  from  keeping  his  word  to  her. 
I  recognize  in  you  your  grandfather,  who  was 
a  miserable  calumniator."  "  Repeat  that  word !  " 
says  Leopold.  Bernard  does  so,  and  the  other 
strikes  him  across  the  face  with  his  glove.  For  a 
perceptible  interval  Bernard  struggles  with  his  rage 
in  silence,  and  then :  "  It  is  well  for  you,"  he  cries, 
"  that  you  are  my  brother !  " 

We  need  not  follow  the  scene  in  the  sentimental 
turning  which  it  then  takes,  whereby  it  comes  about, 
of  course,  that  Bernard,  not  Leopold,  marries  Mile. 
Letellier.  The  point  is  that  Augier  has  justified 
Sarcey's  confidence  by  making  the  scene  thoroughly 
and  specifically  dramatic :  in  other  words,  by  charg- 
ing it  with  emotion,  and  working  up  the  tension 
to  a  very  high  pitch.  And  Sarcey  was  no  doubt 
right  in  holding  that  this  was  what  the  whole 
audience  instinctively  expected,  and  that  they  would 
have  been  more  or  less  consciously  disappointed 
had  the  author  baulked  their  expectation. 


242  PLAY-MAKING 

An  instructive  example  of  the  failure  to  "  make  " 
a  dramatically  obligatory  scene  may  be  found  in 
Agatha  by  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward  and  Mr.  Louis 
Parker.  Agatha  is  believed  to  be  the  child  of  Sir 
Richard  and  Lady  Fancourt ;  but  at  a  given  point 
she  learns  that  a  gentleman  whom  she  has  known 
all  her  life  as  "  Cousin  Ralph  "  is  in  reality  her 
father.  She  has  a  middle-aged  suitor,  Colonel 
Ford,  whom  she  is  very  willing  to  marry;  but 
at  the  end  of  the  second  act  she  refuses  him,  be- 
cause she  shrinks  from  the  idea,  on  the  one  hand, 
of  concealing  the  truth  from  him,  on  the  other 
hand,  of  revealing  her  mother's  trespass.  This  is 
not,  in  itself,  a  very  strong  situation,  for  we  feel 
the  barrier  between  the  lovers  to  be  unreal.  Colonel 
Ford  is  a  man  of  sense.  The  secret  of  Agatha's 
parentage  can  make  no  real  difference  to  him. 
Nothing  material  —  no  point  of  law  or  of  honour 
—  depends  on  it.  He  will  learn  the  truth,  and 
all  will  come  right  between  them.  The  only  point 
on  which  our  interest  can  centre  is  the  question 
how  he  is  to  learn  the  truth ;  and  here  the  authors 
go  very  far  astray.  There  are  two,  and  only  two, 
really  dramatic  ways  in  which  Colonel  Ford  can 
be  enlightened.  Lady  Fancourt  must  realize  that 
Agatha  is  wrecking  her  life  to  keep  her  mother's 
secret,  and  must  either  herself  reveal  it  to  Colonel 
Ford,  or  must  encourage  and  enjoin  Agatha  to  do 
so.  Now,  the  authors  choose  neither  of  these 
ways:  the  secret  slips  out,  through  a  chance  mis- 
understanding in  a  conversation  between  Sir  Rich- 


THE   OBLIGATORY    SCENE        243 

ard  Fancourt  and  the  Colonel.     This  is  a  typical 
instance  of  an  error  of  construction;    and  why? 

—  because  it  leaves  to  chance  what  should  be  an 
act  of  will.    Drama  means  a  thing  done,  not  merely 
a  thing  that  happens ;  and  the  playwright  who  lets 
accident  effect  what  might  naturally  and  probably 
be  a  result  of  volition,  or,  in  other  words,  of  char- 
acter, sins  against  the  fundamental  law  of  his  craft. 
In  the  case  before  us,  Lady  Fancourt  and  Agatha 

—  the  two  characters  on  whom  our  interest  is  cen- 
tred —  are  deprived  of  all  share  in  one  of   the 
crucial  moments  of  the  action.    Whether  the  actual 
disclosure   was  made  by   the   mother   or   by   the 
daughter,  there  ought  to  have  been  a  great  scene 
between  the  two,  in  which  the  mother  should  have 
insisted  that,  by  one  or  other,  the  truth  must  be 
told.     It  would  have  been  a  painful,  a  delicate, 
a  difficult  scene,  but  it  was  the  obligatory  scene  of 
the  play ;  and  had  we  been  allowed  clearly  to  fore- 
see it  at  the  end  of  the  second  act,  our  interest 
would  have  been  decisively  carried  forward.     The 
scene,   too,   might  have  given  the  play  a  moral 
relevance  which  in  fact  it  lacks.    The  readjustment 
of  Agatha's  scheme  of  things,  so  as  to  make  room 
for  her  mother's  history,  might  have  been  made 
explicit  and  partly  intellectual,  instead  of  implicit, 
inarticulate  and  wholly  emotional. 

This  case,  then,  clearly  falls  under  our  second 
heading.  We  cannot  say  that  it  is  the  logic  of 
the  theme  which  demands  the  scene,  for  no  thesis 
or  abstract  idea  is  enunciated.  Nor  can  we  say 


244  PLAY-MAKING 

that  the  course  of  events  is  unnatural  or  improb- 
able; our  complaint  is  that,  without  being  at  all 
less  natural,  they  might  have  been  highly  dramatic, 
and  that  in  fact  they  are  not  so. 

In  a  very  different  type  of  play,  we  find  an- 
other example  of  the  ignoring  of  a  dramatically 
obligatory  scene.  The  author  of  that  charming 
fantasy,  The  Passing  of  the  Third  Floor  Back,  was 
long  ago  guilty  of  a  play  named  The  Rise  of  Dick 
Hal-ward,  chiefly  memorable  for  having  elicited 
from  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw  one  of  the  most  brilliant 
pages  in  English  dramatic  criticism.  The  hero 
of  this  play,  after  an  adventurous  youth  in  Mexico, 
has  gone  to  the  bar,  but  gets  no  briefs,  and  is 
therefore  unable  to  marry  a  lady  who  announces 
that  no  suitor  need  apply  who  has  less  than  £5000 
a  year.  One  fine  day  Dick  receives  from  Mexico 
the  will  of  an  old  comrade,  which  purports  to  leave 
to  him,  absolutely,  half  a  million  dollars,  gold;  but 
the  will  is  accompanied  by  a  letter,  in  which  the 
old  comrade  states  that  the  property  is  really  left 
to  him  only  in  trust  for  the  testator's  long-lost  son, 
whom  Dick  is  enjoined  to  search  out  and  endow 
with  a  capital  which,  at  5  per  cent,  represents  ac- 
curately the  desiderated  £5000  a  year.  As  a  matter 
of  fact  (but  this  is  not  to  our  present  purpose), 
the  long-lost  son  is  actually,  at  that  moment,  shar- 
ing Dick's  chambers  in  the  Temple.  Dick,  however, 
does  not  know  this,  and  cannot  resist  the  tempta- 
tion to  destroy  the  old  miner's  letter,  and  grab  the 
property.  We  know,  of  course,  that  retribution  is 


THE   OBLIGATORY    SCENE        245 

bound  to  descend  upon  him ;  but  does  not  dramatic 
effect  imperatively  require  that,  for  a  brief  space 
at  any  rate,  he  should  be  seen  —  with  whatever 
qualms  of  conscience  his  nature  might  dictate  — 
enjoying  his  ill-gotten  wealth?  Mr.  Jerome,  how- 
ever, baulks  us  of  this  just  expectation.  In  the  very 
first  scene  of  the  second  act  we  find  that  the  game 
is  up.  The  deceased  miner  wrote  his  letter  to  Dick 
seated  in  the  doorway  of  a  hut;  a  chance  pho- 
tographer took  a  snap-shot  at  him;  and  on  re- 
turning to  England,  the  chance  photographer  has 
nothing  more  pressing  to  do  than  to  chance  upon 
the  one  man  who  knows  the  long-lost  son,  and  to 
show  him  the  photograph  of  the  dying  miner,  whom 
he  at  once  recognizes.  By  aid  of  a  microscope,  the 
letter  he  is  writing  can  be  deciphered,  and  thus 
Dick's  fraud  is  brought  home  to  him.  Now  one 
would  suppose  that  an  author  who  had  invented 
this  monstrous  and  staggering  concatenation  of 
chances,  must  hope  to  justify  it  by  some  highly 
dramatic  situation,  in  the  obvious  and  common- 
place sense  of  the  word.  It  is  not  difficult,  indeed, 
to  foresee  such  a  situation,  in  which  Dick  Halward 
should  be  confronted,  as  if  by  magic,  with  the  very 
words  of  the  letter  he  has  so  carefully  destroyed. 
I  am  far  from  saying  that  this  scene  would,  in 
fact,  have  justified  its  amazing  antecedents;  but  it 
would  have  shown  a  realization  on  the  author's 
part  that  he  must  at  any  rate  attempt  some  effect 
proportionate  to  the  strain  he  had  placed  upon  our 
credulity.  Mr.  Jerome  showed  no  such  realization. 


246  PLAY-MAKING 

He  made  the  man  who  handed  Dick  the  copy  of 
the  letter  explain  beforehand  how  it  had  been  ob- 
tained; so  that  Dick,  though  doubtless  surprised 
and  disgusted,  was  not  in  the  least  thunderstruck, 
and  manifested  no  emotion.  Here,  then,  Mr. 
Jerome  evidently  missed  a  scene  rendered  obliga- 
tory by  the  law  of  the  maximum  of  specifically 
dramatic  effect. 

The  third,  or  structural,  class  of  obligatory  scenes 
may  be  more  briefly  dealt  with,  seeing  that  we  have 
already,  in  the  last  chapter,  discussed  the  principle 
involved.  In  this  class  we  have  placed,  by  defi- 
nition, scenes  which  the  author  himself  has  ren- 
dered obligatory  by  seeming  unmistakably  to  lead 
up  to  them  —  or,  in  other  words,  scenes  indicated, 
orseemmg  to  be  indicated,  by^ddibejately-planted 
fingej-posts.  It  may  appear  as  though  the  case  of 
Dick  Halward,  which  we  have  just  been  examining, 
in  reality  came  under  this  heading.  But  it  cannot 
actually  be  said  that  Mr.  Jerome  either  did,  or 
seemed  to,  point  by  finger-posts  towards  the  obli- 
gatory scene.  He  rather  appears  to  have  been 
blankly  unconscious  of  its  possibility. 

We  have  noted  in  the  foregoing  chapter  the 
unwisdom  of  planting  misleading  finger-posts ;  here 
we  have  only  to  deal  with  the  particular  case  in 
which  they  seem  to  point  to  a  definite  and  crucial 
scene.  An  example  given  by  M.  Sarcey  himself 
will,  I  think,  make  the  matter  quite  clear. 

M.  Jules  Lemaitre's  play,  Revoltee,  tells  the  story 


THE   OBLIGATORY    SCENE        247 

of  a  would-be  intellectual,  ill-conditioned  young 
woman,  married  to  a  plain  and  ungainly  professor 
of  mathematics,  whom  she  despises.  We  know 
that  she  is  in  danger  of  yielding  to  the  fascinations 
of  a  seductive  man-about-town ;  and  having  shown 
us  this  danger,  the  author  proceeds  to  emphasize  the 
manly  and  sterling  character  of  the  husband.  He 
has  the  gentleness  that  goes  with  strength;  but 
where  his  affections  or  his  honour  is  concerned, 
he  is  not  a  man  to  be  trifled  with.  This  having 
been  several  times  impressed  upon  us,  we  naturally 
expect  that  the  wife  is  to  be  rescued  by  some  strik- 
ing manifestation  of  the  husband's  masterful  viril- 
ity. But  no  such  matter !  Rescued  she  is,  indeed ; 
but  it  is  by  the  intervention  of  her  half-brother, 
who  fights  a  duel  on  her  behalf,  and  is  brought 
back  wounded  to  restore  peace  to  the  mathema- 
tician's household :  that  man  of  science  having 
been  quite  passive  throughout,  save  for  some  inef- 
fectual remonstrances.  It  happens  that  in  this 
case  we  know  just  where  the  author  went  astray. 
Helene  (the  wife)  is  the  unacknowledged  daugh- 
ter of  a  great  lady,  Mme.  de  Voves;  and  the  sub- 
ject of  the  play,  as  the  author  first  conceived  it,  was 
the  relation  between  the  mother,  the  illegitimate 
daughter,  and  the  legitimate  son;  the  daughter's 
husband  taking  only  a  subordinate  place.  But 
Lemaitre  chose  as  a  model  for  the  husband  a  man 
whom  he  had  known  and  admired ;  and  he  allowed 
himself  to  depict  in  vivid  colours  his  strong  and 
sympathetic  character,  without  noticing  that  he 


248  PLAY-MAKING 

was  thereby  upsetting  the  economy  of  his  play, 
and  giving  his  audience  reason  to  anticipate  a 
line  of  development  quite  different  from  that 
which  he  had  in  mind.  Inadvertently,  in  fact,  he 
planted,  not  one,  but  two  or  three,  misleading 
finger-posts. 

We  come  now  to  the  fourth,  or  r^Y^olog-jra^ 
class  of  obligatory  scenes  —  those  which  are  "  re- 
quired in  order  to  justify  some  modification  of 
character  or  alteration  of  will,  too  important  to 
be  taken  for  granted." 

An  obvious  example  of  an  obligatory  scene  of 
this  class  may  be  found  in  the  third  act  of  Othello. 
The  poet  is  bound  to  show  us  the  process  by  which 
lago  instils  his  poison  into  Othello's  mind.  He  has 
backed  himself,  so  to  speak,  to  make  this  process 
credible  to  us;  and,  by  a  masterpiece  of  dexterity 
and  daring,  he  wins  his  wager.  Had  he  omitted 
this  scene  —  had  he  shown  us  Othello  at  one  mo- 
ment full  of  serene  confidence,  and  at  his  next 
appearance  already  convinced  of  Desdemona's  guilt 
—  he  would  have  omitted  the  pivot  and  turning- 
point  of  the  whole  structure.  It  may  seem  fan- 
tastic to  conceive  that  any  dramatist  could  blunder 
so  grossly ;  but  there  are  not  a  few  plays  in  which 
we  observe  a  scarcely  less  glaring  hiatus. 

A  case  in  point  may  be  found  in  Lord  Tennyson's 
Becket.  I  am  not  one  of  those  who  hold  Tennyson 
merely  contemptible  as  a  dramatist.  I  believe  that, 
had  he  taken  to  playwriting  nearly  half-a-century 


THE    OBLIGATORY    SCENE        249 

earlier,  and  studied  the  root  principles  of  crafts- 
manship, instead  of  blindly  accepting  the  Eliza- 
bethan conventions,  he  might  have  done  work  as 
fine  in  the  mass  as  are  the  best  moments  of  Queen 
Mary  and  Harold.  As  a  whole,  Becket  is  one  of 
his  weakest  productions ;  but  the  Prologue  and  the 
first  act  would  have  formed  an  excellent  first  and 
third  act  for  a  play  of  wholly  different  sequel,  had 
he  interposed,  in  a  second  act,  the  obligatory  scene 
required  to  elucidate  Becket's  character.  The  his- 
toric and  psychological  problem  of  Thomas  Becket 
is  his  startling  trans  formation  from  an  easy-going, 
luxurious,  worldly  statesman  into  a  gaunt  ecclesi- 
astic, fanatically  fighting  for  the  rights  of  his  see, 
of  his  order,  and  of  Rome.  In  any  drama  which 
professes  to  deal  (as  this  does)  with  his  whole 
career,  the  intellectual  interest  cannot  but  centre 
in  an  analysis  of  the  forces  that  brought  about  this 
seeming  new-birth  of  his  soul.  It  would  have  been 
open  to  the  poet,  no  doubt,  to  take  up  his  history 
at  a  later  point,  when  he  was  already  the  full- 
fledged  clerical  and  ultramontane.  But  this  Tenny- 
son does  not  do.  He  is  at  pains  to  present  to  us 
the  magnificent  Chancellor,  the  bosom  friend  of 
the  King,  and  mild  reprover  of  his  vices ;  and  then, 
without  the  smallest  transition,  hey  presto !  he  is  the 
intransigeant  priest,  bitterly  combating  the  Con- 
stitutions of  Clarendon.  It  is  true  that  in  the 
Prologue  the  poet  places  one  or  two  finger-posts 
—  small,  conventional  foreshadowings  of  coming 
trouble.  For  instance,  the  game  of  chess  between 


250  PLAY-MAKING 

King  and  Chancellor  ends  with  a  victory  for  Becket, 
who  says  — 

"  You  see  my  bishop 
Hath  brought  your  king  to  a  standstill.    You  are  beaten." 

The  symbolical  game  of  chess  is  a  well-worn  dra- 
matic device.  Becket,  moreover,  seems  to  feel  some 
vague  disquietude  as  to  what  may  happen  if  he 
accepts  the  archbishopric;  but  there  is  nothing  to 
show  that  he  is  conscious  of  any  bias  towards 
the  intransigeant  clericalism  of  the  later  act.  The 
character-problem,  in  fact,  is  not  only  not  solved, 
but  is  ignored.  The  obligatory  scene  is  skipped 
over,  in  the  interval  between  the  Prologue  and 
the  first  act. 

One  of  the  finest  plays  of  our  time —  Sir  Arthur 
Pinero's  Iris  —  lacks,  in  my  judgment,  an  obli- 
gatory scene.  The  character  of  Iris  is  admirably 
true,  so  far  as  it  goes ;  but  it  is  incomplete.  The 
author  seems  to  have  evaded  the  crucial  point  of 
his  play  —  the  scene  of  her  installation  in  Maldo- 
nado's  flat.  To  perfect  his  psychological  study, 
he  was  bound  to  bridge  the  chasm-  between  the 
Iris  of  the  third  act  and  the  Iris  of  the  fourth. 
He  builds  two  ends  of  the  bridge,  in  the  incident 
of  the  cheque-book  at  the  close  of  the  one  act, 
and  in  the  state  of  hebetude  in  which  we  find  her 
at  the  opening  of  the  other;  but  there  remains  a 
great  gap  at  which  the  imagination  boggles.  The 
author  has  tried  to  throw  a  retrospective  footway 
across  it  in  Iris's  confession  to  Trenwith  in  the 


THE   OBLIGATORY    SCENE        251 

fifth  act;  but  I  do  not  find  that  it  quite  meets  the 
case.  It  would  no  doubt  have  been  very  difficult 
to  keep  the  action  within  reasonable  limits  had  a 
new  act  taken  the  place  of  the  existing  fourth ;  but 
Sir  Arthur  Pinero  would  probably  have  produced 
a  completer  work  of  art  had  he  faced  this  difficulty, 
and  contrived  to  compress  into  a  single  last  act 
something  like  the  matter  of  the  existing  fourth 
and  fifth.  It  may  be  that  he  deliberately  preferred 
that  Iris  should  give  in  narrative  the  history  of 
her  decline;  but  I  do  not  consider  this  a  case  in 
support  of  that  slight  plea  for  impassioned  narra- 
tive which  I  ventured  to  put  forth  a  few  pages 
back.  Her  confession  to  Trenwith  would  have  been 
far  more  dramatic  and  moving  had  it  been  about 
one-fourth  part  as  long  and  one-fourth  part  as 
articulate. 

Of  the  scene  imposed  by  history  or  legend  it  is 
unnecessary  to  say  very  much.  We  saw  in  Chapter 
IX  that  the  theatre  is  not  the  place  for  expounding 
the  results  of  original  research,  which  cast  a  new 
light  on  historic  character.  It  is  not  the  place  for 
whitewashing  Richard  III,  or  representing  him  as 
a  man  of  erect  and  graceful  figure.  It  is  not  the 
place  for  proving  that  Guy  Fawkes  was  an  earnest 
Presbyterian,  that  Nell  Gwynn  was  a  lady  of  the 
strictest  morals,  or  that  George  Washington  was 
incapable  of  telling  the  truth.  The  playwright  who 
deals  with  Henry  VIII  is  bound  to  present  him, 
in  the  schoolboy's  phrase,  as  "  a  great  widower." 


252  PLAY-MAKING 

William  the  Silent  must  not  be  a  chatterbox,  Tor- 
quemada  a  humanitarian,  Ivan  the  Terrible  a  con- 
scientious opponent  of  capital  punishment.  And 
legend  has  its  fixed  points  no  less  than  history. 
In  the  theatre,  indeed,  there  is  little  distinction 
between  them:  history  is  legend,  and  legend  his- 
tory. A  dramatist  may,  if  he  pleases  (though  it 
is  a  difficult  task),  break  wholly  unfamiliar  ground 
in  the  past;  but  where  a  historic  legend  exists  he 
must  respect  it  at  his  peril. 

From  all  this  it  is  a  simple  deduction  that  where 
legend  (historic  or  otherwise)  associates  a  par- 
ticular character  with  a  particular  scene  that  is 
by  any  means  presentable  on  the  stage,  that  scene 
becomes  obligatory  in  a  drama  of  which  he  is 
the  leading  figure.  The  fact  that  Shakespeare  could 
write  a  play  about  King  John,  and  say  nothing 
about  Runnymede  and  Magna  Charta,  shows  that 
that  incident  in  constitutional  history  had  not  yet 
passed  into  popular  legend.  When  Sir  Herbert 
Tree  revived  the  play,  he  repaired  the  poet's  omis- 
sion by  means  of  an  inserted  tableau.  Even  Shake- 
speare had  not  the  hardihood  to  let  Caesar  fall 
without  saying,  "  The  Ides  of  March  are  come  " 
and  "  Et  tu,  Brute !  "  Nero  is  bound  to  fiddle  while 
Rome  burns,  or  the  audience  will  know  the  reason 
why.1  Historic  criticism  will  not  hear  of  the 
"  Thou  hast  conquered,  Galilean !  "  which  legend 

1  In  Mr.  Stephen  Phillips's  play  he  does  not  actually  play 
on  the  lyre,  but  he  improvises  and  recites  an  ode  to  the 
conflagration. 


THE   OBLIGATORY    SCENE        253 

attributes  to  Julian  the  Apostate;  yet  Ibsen  not 
only  makes  him  say  it,  but  may  almost  be  said 
to  find  in  the  phrase  the  keynote  of  his  world- 
historic  drama.  Tristram  and  Iseult  must  drink 
a  love-philtre  or  they  are  not  Tristram  and  Iseult. 
It  would  be  the  extreme  of  paradox  to  write  a 
Paolo-and-Francesca  play  and  omit  the  scene  of 
"  Quel  giorno  piu  non  vi  leggemmo  avante." 

The  cases  are  not  very  frequent,  however,  in 
which  an  individual  incident  is  thus  imposed  by 
history  or  legend.  The  practical  point  to  be  noted 
is  rather  that,  when  an  author  introduces  a 
strongly-marked  historical  character,  he  must  be 
prepared  to  give  him  at  least  one  good  opportunity 
of  acting  up  to  the  character  which  legend  —  the 
best  of  evidence  in  the  theatre  —  assigns  to  him. 
When  such  a  personage  is  presented  to  us,  it  ought 
to  be  at  his  highest  potency.  We  do  not  want  to 
see  — 

"  From  Marlborqugh's  eyes  the  tears  of  dotage  flow, 
And  Swift  expire,  a  driveller  and  a  show." 

If  you  deal  with  Napoleon,  for  instance,  it  is  per- 
fectly clear  that  he  must  dominate  the  stage.  As 
soon  as  you  bring  in  the  name,  the  idea,  of 
Napoleon  Bonaparte,  men  have  eyes  and  ears  for 
nothing  else;  and  they  demand  to  see  him,  in 
a  general  way,  acting  up  to  their  general  concep- 
tion of  him.  That  was  what  Messrs.  Lloyd 
Osbourne  and  Austin  Strong  forgot  in  their  other- 
wise clever  play,  The  Exile.  It  is  useless  to  prove, 


254  PLAY-MAKING 

historically,  that  at  a  given  moment  he  was  passive, 
supine,  unconscious,  while  people  around  him  were 
eagerly  plotting  his  escape  and  restoration.  That 
may  have  been  so;  but  it  is  not  what  an  audience 
wants  to  see.  It  wants  to  see  Napoleon  Napoleon- 
izing.  For  anomalies  and  uncharacteristic  episodes 
in  Napoleon's  career  we  must  go  to  books ;  the  play- 
house is  not  the  place  for  them.  It  is  true  that 
a  dramatist  like  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw  may,  at  his 
own  risk  and  peril,  set  forth  to  give  us  a  new 
reading  of  Caesar  or  of  Napoleon,  which  may  or 
may  not  be  dramatically  acceptable.1  But  this  is 
not  what  Messrs.  Osbourne  and  Strong  tried  to 
do.  Their  Napoleon  was  the  Napoleon  of  tra- 
dition —  only  he  failed  to  act  "  in  a  concatenation 
according." 

There  are  a  few  figures  in  history  —  and  Na- 
poleon is  one  of  them  —  which  so  thrill  the  imagi- 
nation that  their  mere  name  can  dominate  the  stage, 
better,  perhaps,  than  their  bodily  presence.  In 
L'Aiglon,  by  M.  Rostand,  Napoleon  is  in  fact  the 
hero,  though  he  lies  dead  in  his  far-off  island, 
under  the  Southern  Cross.  Another  such  figure  is 
Abraham  Lincoln.  In  James  Herne's  sadly  under- 
rated play,  Griffith  Davenport,  we  were  always 
conscious  of  "  Mr.  Lincoln  "  in  the  background ; 
and  the  act  in  which  Governor  Morton  of  Indiana 


1  And,  after  all,  Mr.  Shaw  does  not  run  counter  to  the 
legend.  He  exhibits  Caesar  and  Napoleon  "  in  their  well- 
known  attitudes " :  only,  by  an  odd  metempsychosis,  the 
soul  of  Mr.  Shaw  has  somehow  entered  into  them. 


THE    OBLIGATORY    SCENE        255 

brought  the  President's  instructions  to  Davenport 
might  fairly  be  called  an  obligatory  scene,  inas- 
much as  it  gave  us  the  requisite  sense  of  personal 
nearness  to  the  master-spirit,  without  involving  any 
risk  of  belittlement  through  imperfections  of  repre- 
sentation. There  is  a  popular  melodrama,  passing 
in  Palestine  under  the  Romans,  throughout  the 
course  of  which  we  constantly  feel  the  influence  of 
a  strange  new  prophet,  unseen  but  wonder-work- 
ing, who,  if  I  remember  rightly,  is  personally  pre- 
sented to  us  only  in  a  final  tableau,  wherein  he 
appears  riding  into  Jerusalem  amid  the  hosannas 
of  the  multitude.  The  execution  of  Ben  Hur  is 
crude  and  commonplace,  but  the  conception  is  by 
no  means  inartistic.  Historical  figures  of  the  high- 
est rank  may  perhaps  be  best  adumbrated  in  this 
fashion,  with  or  without  one  personal  appearance, 
so  brief  that  there  shall  be  no  danger  of  anti- 
climax. 

The  last  paragraph  reminds  us  that  the  accom- 
plished playwright  shows  his  accomplishment  quite 
as  much  in  his  recognition  and  avoidance  of  the 
scene  a  ne  pas  faire  as  in  his  divination  of  the  obli- 
gatory scene.  There  is  always  the  chance  that  no 
one  may  miss  a  scene  demanded  by  logic  or  psy- 
chology; but  an  audience  knows  too  well  when 
it  has  been  bored  or  distressed  by  a  superfluous, 
or  inconsequent,  or  wantonly  painful  scene. 

Some  twenty  years  ago,  in  criticizing  a  play 
named  Le  Maitre  d'Armcs,  M.  Sarcey  took  the 


256  PLAY-MAKING 

authors  gravely  to  task,  in  the  name  of  "  Aristotle 
and  common  sense,"  for  following  the  modern 
and  reprehensible  tendency  to  present  "  slices  of 
life "  rather  than  constructed  and  developed 
dramas.  Especially  he  reproached  them  with  de- 
liberately omitting  the  scene  a  faire.  A  young  lady 
is  seduced,  he  says,  and,  for  the  sake  of  her  child, 
implores  her  betrayer  to  keep  his  promise  of  mar- 
riage. He  renews  the  promise,  without  the  slightest 
intention  of  fulfilling  it,  and  goes  on  board  his 
yacht  in  order  to  make  his  escape.  She  discovers 
his  purpose  and  follows  him  on  board  the  yacht. 
"  What  is  the  scene,"  asks  M.  Sarcey  —  here  I 
translate  literally  —  "  which  you  expect,  you,  the 
public?  It  is  the  scene  between  the  abandoned 
fair  one  and  her  seducer.  The  author  may  make 
it  in  a  hundred  ways,  but  make  it  he  must !  "  In- 
stead of  which,  the  critic  proceeds,  we  are  fobbed 
off  with  a  storm-scene,  a  rescue,  and  other  sensa- 
tional incidents,  and  hear  no  word  of  what  passes 
between  the  villain  and  his  victim.  Here,  I  think, 
M.  Sarcey  is  mistaken  in  his  application  of  his 
pet  principle.  Words  cannot  express  our  uncon- 
cern as  to  what  passes  between  the  heroine  and  the 
villain  on  board  the  yacht  —  nay,  more,  our  grati- 
tude for  being  spared  that  painful  and  threadbare 
scene  of  recrimination.  The  plot  demands,  ob- 
serve, that  the  villain  shall  not  relent.  We  know 
quite  well  that  he  cannot,  for  if  he  did  the  play 
would  fall  to  pieces.  Why,  then,  should  we  expect 
or  demand  a  sordid  squabble  which  can  lead  to 


THE   OBLIGATORY    SCENE        257 

nothing  ?  We  —  and  by  "  we  "  I  mean  the  public 
which  relishes  such  plays  —  cannot  possibly  have 
any  keen  appetite  for  copious  re-hashes  of  such 
very  cold  mutton  as  the  appeals  of  the  penitent 
heroine  to  the  recalcitrant  villain.  And  the  moral 
seems  to  be  that  in  this  class  of  play  —  the  drama, 
if  one  may  call  it  so,  of  foregone  character  —  the 
scene  a  faire  is  precisely  the  scene  to  be  omitted. 

In  plays  of  a  more  ambitious  class,  skill  is  often 
shown  by  the  indication,  in  place  of  the  formal 
presentment,  even  of  an  important  scene  which  the 
audience  may,  or  might,  have  expected  to  witness 
in  full.  We  have  already  noted  such  a  case  in  The 
Wild  Duck:  Ibsen  knew  that  what  we  really  re- 
quired to  witness  was  not  the  actual  process  of 
Gregers's  disclosure  to  Hialmar,  but  its  effects. 
A  small,  but  quite  noticeable,  example  of  a  scene 
thus  rightly  left  to  the  imagination  occurred  in 
Mr.  Somerset  Maugham's  first  play,  A  Man  of 
Honour.  In  the  first  act,  Jack  Halliwell,  his  wife, 
and  his  sister-in-law  call  upon  his  friend  Basil 
Kent.  The  sister-in-law,  Hilda  Murray,  is  a  rich 
widow;  and  she  and  Kent  presently  go  out  on 
the  balcony  together  and  are  lost  to  view.  Then 
it  appears,  in  a  scene  between  the  Halliwells,  that 
they  fully  believe  that  Kent  is  in  love  with  Mrs. 
Murray  and  is  now  proposing  to  her.  But  when 
the  two  re-enter  from  the  balcony,  it  is  evident 
from  their  mien  that,  whatever  may  have  passed 
between  them,  they  are  not  affianced  lovers;  and 
we  presently  learn  that  though  Kent  is  in  fact 


258  PLAY-MAKING 

strongly  attracted  to  Mrs.  Murray,  he  considers 
himself  bound  in  honour  to  marry  a  certain  Jenny 
Bush,  a  Fleet  Street  barmaid,  with  whom  he  has 
become  entangled.  Many  playwrights  would,  so 
to  speak,  have  dotted  the  i's  of  the  situation  by  giv- 
ing us  the  scene  between  Kent  and  Mrs.  Murray ; 
but  Mr.  Maugham  has  done  exactly  right  in  leav- 
ing us  to  divine  it.  We  know  all  that,  at  this  point, 
we  require  to  know  of  the  relation  between  them; 
to  have  told  us  more  would  have  been  to  antici- 
pate and  discount  the  course  of  events. 

A  more  striking  instance  of  a  scene  rightly 
placed  behind  the  scenes  occurs  in  M.  de  Curel's 
terrible  drama  Les  Fossiles.  I  need  not  go  into 
the  singularly  unpleasing  details  of  the  plot.  Suffice 
it  to  say  that  a  very  peculiar  condition  of  things 
exists  in  the  family  of  the  Due  de  Chantemelle. 
It  has  been  fully  discussed  in  the  second  act  between 
the  Duke  and  his  daughter  Claire,  who  has  been 
induced  to  accept  it  for  the  sake  of  the  family 
name.  But  a  person  more  immediately  concerned 
is  Robert  de  Chantemelle,  the  only  son  of  the  house 
—  will  he  also  accept  it  quietly?  A  nurse,  who  is 
acquainted  with  the  black  secret,  misbehaves  her- 
self, and  is  to  be  packed  off.  As  she  is  a  violent 
woman,  Robert  insists  on  dismissing  her  himself, 
and  leaves  the  room  to  do  so.  The  rest  of  the 
family  are  sure  that,  in  her  rage,  she  will  blurt 
out  the  whole  story;  and  they  wait,  in  breathless 
anxiety,  for  Robert's  return.  What  follows  need 
not  be  told :  the  point  is  that  this  scene  —  the  scene 


THE   OBLIGATORY    SCENE        259 

of  tense  expectancy  as  to  the  result  of  a  crisis  which 
is  taking  place  in  another  room  of  the  same  house 
—  is  really  far  more  dramatic  than  the  crisis  itself 
would  be.  The  audience  already  knows  all  that 
the  angry  virago  can  say  to  her  master;  and  of 
course  no  discussion  of  the  merits  of  the  case  is 
possible  between  these  two.  Therefore  M.  de  Curel 
is  conspicuously  right  in  sparing  us  the  scene  of 
vulgar  violence,  and  giving  us  the  scene  of  far 
higher  tension  in  which  Robert's  father,  wife  and 
sister  expect  his  return,  their  apprehension  deepen- 
ing with  every  moment  that  he  delays. 

We  see,  then,  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  a 
false  scene  a  faire  —  a  scene  which  at  first  sight 
seems  obligatory,  but  is  in  fact  much  better  taken 
for  granted.  It  may  be  absolutely  indispensable 
that  it  should  be  suggested  to  the  mind  of  the 
audience,  but  neither  indispensable  nor  advisable 
that  it  should  be  presented  to  their  eyes.  The  judi- 
cious playwright  will  often  ask  himself,  "  Is  it  the 
actual  substance  of  this  scene  that  I  require,  or 
only  its  repercussion  ?  " 


XIV 

THE   PERI  PET  Y 

TN  the  Greek  theatre,  as  every  one  knows,  the 
•*•  peripeteia  or  reversal  of  fortune  —  the  turning 
of  the  tables,  as  we  might  say  —  was  a  clearly- 
defined  and  recognized  portion  of  the  dramatic  or- 
ganism. It  was  often  associated  with  the  anag- 
norisis or  recognition.  Mr.  Gilbert  Murray  has 
recently  shown  cause  for  believing  that  both  these 
dramatic  "  forms  "  descended  from  the  ritual  in 
which  Greek  drama  took  its  origin  —  the  ritual 
celebrating  the  death  and  resurrection  of  the  season 
of  "  mellow  fruitfulness."  If  this  theory  be  true, 
the  peripeteia  was  at  first  a  change  from  sorrow  to 
joy  —  joy  in  the  rebirth  of  the  beneficent  powers 
of  nature.  And  to  this  day  a  sudden  change  from 
gloom  to  exhilaration  is  a  popular  and  effective  inci- 
dent—  as  when,  at  the  end  of  a  melodrama,  the 
handcuffs  are  transferred  from  the  wrists  of  the 
virtuous  naval  lieutenant  to  those  of  the  wicked 
baronet,  and,  through  the  disclosure  of  a  straw- 
berry-mark on  his  left  arm,  the  lieutenant  is  recog- 
nized as  the  long-lost  heir  to  a  dukedom  .and 
£50,000  a  year. 

But  when,  as  soon  happened  in  Greece,  the  forms 
appropriate  to  a  celebration  of  the  death  and  resur- 

260 


THE    PERIPETY  261 

rection  of  Dionysus  came  to  be  blent  with  the  tomb- 
ritual  of  a  hero,  the  term  peripeteia  acquired  a 
special  association  with  a  sudden  decline  from  pros- 
perity into  adversity.  In  the  Middle  Ages,  this 
was  thought  to  be  the  very  essence  and  meaning 
of  tragedy,  as  we  may  see  from  Chaucer's  lines :  — 

"  Tragedie  is  to  seyn  a  certeyn  storie, 
As  olde  bokes  maken  us  memorie, 
Of  him  that  stood  in  gret  prosperitee, 
And  is  y-fallen  out  of  heigh  degree 
Into  miserie,  and  endeth  wrecchedly." 

Aristotle  cites  a  good  instance  of  a  peripety  —  to 
Anglicize  the  word  —  "  where,  in  the  Lynceus,  the 
hero  is  led  away  to  execution,  followed  by  Danaus 
as  executioner;  but,  as  the  effect  of  the  antece- 
dents, Danaus  is  executed  and  Lynceus  escapes." 
But  here,  as  in  so  many  other  contexts,  we  must 
turn  for  the  classic  example  to  the  Oedipus  Rex. 
Jocasta,  hearing  from  the  Corinthian  stranger  that 
Polybus,  King  of  Corinth,  the  reputed  father  of 
Oedipus,  is  dead,  sends  for  her  husband  to  tell  him 
that  the  oracle  which  doomed  him  to  parricide  is 
defeated,  since  Polybus  has  died  a  natural  death. 
Oedipus  exults  in  the  news  and  triumphs  over  the 
oracles;  but,  as  the  scene  proceeds,  the  further 
revelations  made  by  the  same  stranger  lead  Jocasta 
to  recognize  in  Oedipus  her  own  child,  who  was 
exposed  on  Mount  Kithairon;  and,  in  the  subse- 
quent scene,  the  evidence  of  the  old  Shepherd  brings 
Oedipus  himself  to  the  same  crushing  realization. 
No  completer  case  of  anagnorisis  and  peripeteia 


262  PLAY-MAKING 

could  well  be  conceived  —  whatever  we  may  have 
to  say  of  the  means  by  which  it  is  led  up  to.1 

Has  the  conception  of  the  peripety,  as  an  almost 
obligatory  element  in  drama,  any  significance  for 
the  modern  playwright?  Obligatory,  of  course, 
it  cannot  be :  it  is  easy  to  cite  a  hundred  admirable 
plays  in  which  it  is  impossible  to  discover  any- 
thing that  can  reasonably  be  called  a  peripety. 
But  this,  I  think,  we  may  safely  say :  the  dramatist 
is  fortunate  who  finds  in  the  development  of  his 
theme,  without  unnatural  strain  or  too  much  prep- 
aration, opportunity  for  a  great  scene,  highly- 
wrought,  arresting,  absorbing,  wherein  one  or  more 
of  his  characters  shall  experience  a  marked  reversal 
either  of  inward  soul-state  or  of  outward  fortune. 
The  theory  of  the  peripety,  in  short,  practically  re- 
solves itself  for  us  into  the  theory  of  the  "  great 
scene."  Plays  there  are,  many  and  excellent  plays, 
in  which  some  one  scene  stands  out  from  all  the 
rest,  impressing  itself  with  peculiar  vividness  on 
the  spectator's  mind;  and,  nine  times  out  of  ten, 
this  scene  will  be  found  to  involve  a  peripety.  It 
can  do  no  harm,  then,  if  the  playwright  should 
ask  himself :  "  Can  I,  without  any  undue  sacrifice, 
so  develop  my  theme  as  to  entail  upon  my  leading 
characters,  naturally  and  probably,  an  experience 
of  this  order?  " 

The  peripeties  of  real  life  are  frequent,  though 

1  That  great  spiritual  drama  known  as  the  Book  of  Job 
opens,  after  the  Prologue  in  Heaven,  with  one  of  the  most 
startling  of  peripeties. 


THE    PERIPETY  263 

they  are  apt  to  be  too  small  in  scale,  or  else  too 
fatally  conclusive,  to  provide  material  for  drama. 
One  of  the  commonest,  perhaps,  is  that  of  the  man 
who  enters  a  physician's  consulting-room  to  seek 
advice  in  some  trifling  ailment,  and  comes  out 
again,  half  an  hour  later,  doomed  either  to  death 
or  to  some  calamity  worse  than  death.  This  situ- 
ation has  been  employed,  not  ineffectively,  by  Sir 
Arthur  Conan  Doyle,  in  the  first  act  of  a  romantic 
drama,  The  Fires  of  Fate;  but  it  is  very  difficult 
to  find  any  dramatic  sequel  to  a  peripety  involving 
mere  physical  disaster.1  The  moral  peripety 
—  the  sudden  dissipation  of  some  illusion,  or 
defeat  of  some  imposture,  or  crumbling  of  some 
castle  in  the  air  —  is  a  no  less  characteristic  inci- 
dent of  real  life,  and  much  more  amenable  to  the 
playwright's  uses.  Certainly  there  are  few  things 
more  impressive  in  drama  than  to  see  a  man  or 
woman  —  or  a  man  and  woman  —  come  upon  the 
stage,  radiant,  confident,  assured  that 

"  God  's  in  his  heaven. 
All's  right  with  the  world," 

and  leave  it  crushed  and  desperate,  after  a  gradual 
and  yet  swift  descent  into  Avernus.  Such  a  scene 
is  of  the  very  marrow  of  drama.  It  is  a  play 
within  a  play;  a  concentrated,  quintessentiated 
crisis. 

1  The  first  act  of  Mr.  Gilbert  Murray's  Carlyon  Sahib 
contains  an  incident  of  this  nature;  but  it  can  scarcely  be 
called  a  peripety,  since  the  victim  remains  unconscious  of 
his  doom. 


264  PLAY-MAKING 

In  the  third  act  of  Othello  we  have  a  peripety 
handled  with  consummate  theatrical  skill.  To  me 
—  I  confess  it  with  bated  breath  —  the  craftsman- 
ship seems  greatly  superior  to  the  psychology. 
Othello,  when  we  look  into  it,  succumbs  with  in- 
credible facility  to  lago's  poisoned  pin-pricks;  but 
no  audience  dreams  of  looking  into  it;  and  there 
lies  the  proof  of  Shakespeare's  technical  mastery. 
In  the  Trial  Scene  in  The  Merchant  of  Venice  we 
have  another  great  peripety.  It  illustrates  the 
obvious  principle  that,  where  the  drama  consists 
in  a  conflict  between  two  persons  or  parties,  the 
peripety  is  generally  a  double  one  —  the  sudden 
collapse  of  Shylock's  case  implying  an  equally  sud- 
den restoration  of  Antonio's  fortunes.  Perhaps 
the  most  striking  peripety  in  Ibsen  is  Stockmann's 
fall  from  jubilant  self-confidence  to  defiant  impo- 
tence in  the  third  act  of  An  Enemy  of  the  People. 
Thinking  that  he  has  the  "  compact  majority  "  at 
his  back,  he  assumes  the  Burgomaster's  insignia  of 
office,  and  lords  it  over  his  incensed  brother,  only 
to  learn,  by  blow  on  blow  of  disillusionment,  that 
"  the  compact  majority  "  has  ratted,  that  he  is  to 
be  deprived  of  his  position  and  income,  and  that 
the  commonest  freedom  of  speech  is  to  be  denied 
him.  In  A  Doll's  House  there  are  two  peripeties : 
Nora's  fall  from  elation  to  despair  in  the  first 
scene  with  Krogstad,  and  the  collapse  of  Helmer's 
illusions  in  the  last  scene  of  all. 

A  good  instance  of  the  "  great  scene  "  which  in- 
volves a  marked  peripety  occurs  in  Sardou's  Dora, 


THE    PERIPETY  265 

once  famous  in  England  under  the  title  of  Diplo- 
macy. The  "  scene  of  the  three  men  "  shows  how 
Tekli,  a  Hungarian  exile,  calls  upon  his  old  friend 
Andre  de  Maurillac,  on  the  day  of  Andre's  mar- 
riage, and  congratulates  him  on  having  eluded  the 
wiles  of  a  dangerous  adventuress,  Dora  de  Rio- 
Zares,  by  whom  he  had  once  seemed  to  be  at- 
tracted. But  it  is  precisely  Dora  whom  Andre  has 
married ;  and,  learning  this,  Tekli  tries  to  withdraw, 
or  minimize,  his  imputation.  For  a  moment  a  duel 
seems  imminent;  but  Andre's  friend,  Favrolles, 
adjures  him  to  keep  his  head;  and  the  three  men 
proceed  to  thrash  the  matter  out  as  calmly  as 
possible,  with  the  result  that,  in  the  course  of  half- 
an-hour  or  so,  it  seems  to  be  proved  beyond  all 
doubt  that  the  woman  Andre  adores,  and  whom 
he  has  just  married,  is  a  treacherous  spy,  who  sells 
to  tyrannical  foreign  governments  the  lives  of 
political  exiles  and  the  honour  of  the  men  who 
fall  into  her  toils.  The  crushing  suspicion  is  ulti- 
mately disproved,  by  one  of  the  tricks  in  which 
Sardou  delighted;  but  that  does  not  here  concern 
us.  Artificial  as  are  its  causes  and  its  consequences, 
the  "  scene  of  the  three  men,"  while  it  lasts,  holds 
us  breathless  and  absorbed ;  and  Andre's  fall  from 
the  pinnacle  of  happiness  to  the  depth  of  misery, 
is  a  typical  peripety. 

Equally  typical  and  infinitely  more  tragic  is 
another  post-nuptial  peripety  —  the  scene  of  the 
mutual  confession  of  Angel  Clare  and  Tess  in  Mr. 
Hardy's  great  novel.  As  it  stands  on  the  printed 


266  PLAY-MAKING 

page,  this  scene  is  a  superb  piece  of  drama.  Its 
greatness  has  been  obscured  in  the  English  theatre 
by  the  general  unskil  fulness  of  the  dramatic  ver- 
sion presented.  One  magnificent  scene  does  not 
make  a  play.  In  America,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
fine  acting  of  Mrs.  Fiske  secured  popularity  for  a 
version  which  was,  perhaps,  rather  better  than  that 
which  we  saw  in  England. 

I  have  said  that  dramatic  peripeties  are  not 
infrequent  in  real  life;  and  their  scene,  as  is 
natural,  is  often  laid  in  the  law  courts.  It  is  un- 
necessary to  recall  the  awful  "  reversal  of  fortune  " 
that  overtook  one  of  the  most  brilliant  of  modern 
dramatists.  About  the  same  period,  another  drama 
of  the  English  courts  ended  in  a  startling  and  terri- 
ble peripety.  A  young  lady  was  staying  as  a  guest 
with  a  half-pay  officer  and  his  wife.  A  valuable 
pearl  belonging  to  the  hostess  disappeared;  and 
the  hostess  accused  her  guest  of  having  stolen  it. 
The  young  lady,  who  had  meanwhile  married, 
brought  an  action  for  slander  against  her  quon- 
dam friend.  For  several  days  the  case  continued, 
and  everything  seemed  to  be  going  in  the  plain- 
tiff's favour.  Major  Blank,  the  defendant's  hus- 
band, was  ruthlessly  cross-examined  by  Sir  Charles 
Russell,  afterwards  Lord  Chief  Justice  of  England, 
with  a  view  to  showing  that  he  was  the  real  thief. 
He  made  a  very  bad  witness,  and  things  looked 
black  against  him.  The  end  was  nearing,  and 
every  one  anticipated  a  verdict  in  the  plaintiff's 
favour,  when  there  came  a  sudden  change  of  scene. 


THE    PERIPETY  267 

The  stolen  pearl  had  been  sold  to  a  firm  of  jewel- 
lers, who  had  recorded  the  numbers  of  the  Bank  of 
England  notes  with  which  they  paid  for  it. 
One  of  these  notes  was  produced  in  court,  and  lo ! 
it  was  endorsed  with  the  name  of  the  plaintiff.1 
In  a  moment,  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  the  whole 
edifice  of  mendacity  and  perjury  fell  to  pieces. 
The  thief  was  arrested  and  imprisoned;  but  the 
peripety  for  her  was  less  terrible  than  for  her  hus- 
band, who  had  married  her  in  chivalrous  faith  in 
her  innocence. 

Would  it  have  been  —  or  may  it  some  day  prove 
to  be  —  possible  to  transfer  this  "  well-made " 
drama  of  real  life  bodily  to  the  stage?  I  am  in- 
clined to  think  not.  It  looks  to  me  very  much 
like  one  of  those  "  blind  alley  "  themes  of  which 
mention  has  been  made.  There  is  matter,  indeed, 
for  most  painful  drama  in  the  relations  of  the 
husband  and  wife,  both  before  and  after  the  trial; 
but,  from  the  psychological  point  of  view,  one  can 
see  nothing  in  the  case  but  a  distressing  and  inex- 
plicable anomaly.2  At  the  same  time,  the  bare  fact 
of  the  sudden  and  tremendous  peripety  is  irresisti- 
bly dramatic;  and  Mr.  Henry  Arthur  Jones  has 
admitted  that  it  suggested  to  him  the  great  scene 

1  For  the  benefit  of  American  readers,  it  may  be  well  to 
state  that  the  person  who  changes  a  Bank  of  England  note 
is  often  asked  to  write  his  or  her  name  on  the  back  of  it. 
It  must  have  been  in  a  moment  of  sheer  aberration  that  the 
lady  in  question  wrote  her  own  name. 

M.  Bernstein,  dishing  up  a  similar  theme  with  a  piquant 
sauce  of  sensuality,  made  but  a  vulgar  and  trivial  piece  of 
work  of  it. 


268  PLAY-MAKING 

of  the  unmasking  of  Felicia  Hindemarsh  in  Mrs. 
Dane's  Defence. 

It  is  instructive  to  note  the  delicate  adjustment 
which  Mr.  Jones  found  necessary  in  order  to  adapt 
the  theme  to  dramatic  uses.  In  the  first  place,  not 
wishing  to  plunge  into  the  depths  of  tragedy,  he 
left  the  heroine  unmarried,  though  on  the  point  of 
marriage.  In  the  second  place,  he  made  the  blot 
on  her  past,  not  a  theft  followed  by  an  attempt 
to  shift  the  guilt  on  to  other  shoulders,  but  an 
error  of  conduct,  due  to  youth  and  inexperience, 
serious  in  itself,  but  rendered  disastrous  by  tragic 
consequences  over  which  she,  Felicia,  had  no  con- 
trol. Thus  Mr.  Jones  raised  a  real  and  fairly 
sufficient  obstacle  between  his  lovers,  without  ren- 
dering his  heroine  entirely  unsympathetic,  or  pre- 
senting her  in  the  guise  of  a  bewildering  moral 
anomaly.  Thirdly,  he  transferred  the  scene  of 
the  peripety  from  a  court  of  justice,  with  its  difficult 
adjuncts  and  tedious  procedure,  to  the  private  study 
of  a  great  lawyer.  At  the  opening  of  the  scene  be- 
tween Mrs.  Dane  and  Sir  Daniel  Carteret,  she  is, 
no  doubt,  still  anxious  and  ill-at-ease,  but  reason- 
ably confident  of  having  averted  all  danger  of  ex- 
posure. Sir  Daniel,  too  (like  Sir  Charles  Russell 
in  the  pearl  suit),  is  practically  convinced  of  her 
innocence.  He  merely  wants  to  get  the  case  abso- 
lutely clear,  for  the  final  confounding  of  her 
accusers.  At  first,  all  goes  smoothly.  Mrs.  Dane's 
answers  to  his  questions  are  pat  and  plausible. 
Then  she  makes  a  single,  almost  imperceptible, 


THE    PERIPETY  269 

slip  of  the  tongue :  she  says,  "  We  had  govern- 
esses," instead  of  "  I  had  governesses."  Sir  Daniel 
pricks  up  his  ears :  "  We  ?  You  say  you  were  an 
only  child.  Who's  we?"  "  My  cousin  and  I,"  she 
answers.  Sir  Daniel  thinks  it  odd  that  he  has  not 
heard  of  this  cousin  before;  but  he  continues  his 
interrogatory  without  serious  suspicion.  Then  it 
occurs  to  him  to  look  up,  in  a  topographical  dic- 
tionary, the  little  town  of  Tawhampton,  where 
Mrs.  Dane  spent  her  youth.  He  reads  the  bald 
account  of  it,  ending  thus,  "  The  living  is  a  Vicar- 
age, net  yearly  value  £376,  and  has  been  held  since 
1875  by"  —  and  he  turns  round  upon  her  —  "by 
the  Rev.  Francis  Hindemarsh !  Hindemarsh  ?  " 

MRS.  DANE:   He  was  my  uncle. 

SIR  DANIEL:   Your  uncle? 

MRS.  DANE  :  Sir  Daniel,  I  Ve  done  wrong  to  hide 
from  you  that  Felicia  Hindemarsh  was  my  cousin. 

SIR  DANIEL  :  Felicia  Hindemarsh  was  your  cousin ! 

MRS.  DANE:  Can't  you  understand  why  I  have 
hidden  it?  The  whole  affair  was  so  terrible. 

And  so  she  stumbles  on,  from  one  inevitable  ad- 
mission to  another,  until  the  damning  truth  is  clear 
that  she  herself  is  Felicia  Hindemarsh,  the  central, 
though  not  the  most  guilty,  figure  in  a  horrible 
scandal. 

This  scene  is  worthy  of  study  as  an  excellent 
type  of  what  may  be  called  the  judicial  peripety. 
the  crushing  cross-examination,  in  which  it  is  possi- 
ble to  combine  the  tension  of  the  detective  story 


2/0  PLAY-MAKING 

with  no  small  psychological  subtlety.  In  Mr. 
Jones's  scene,  the  psychology  is  obvious  enough; 
but  it  is  an  admirable  example  of  nice  adjust- 
ment without  any  obtrusive  ingenuity.  The  whole 
drama,  in  short,  up  to  the  last  act  is,  in  the  exact 
sense  of  the  word,  a  well-made  play  —  complex 
yet  clear,  ingenious  yet  natural.  In  the  comparative 
weakness  of  the  last  act  we  have  a  common  char- 
acteristic of  latter-day  drama,  which  will  have  to 
be  discussed  in  due  course. 

In  this  case  we  have  a  peripety  of  external  for- 
tune. For  a  clearly-marked  moral  peripety  we  may 
turn  to  the  great  scene  between  Vivie  and  her 
mother  in  the  second  act  of  Mrs.  Warren's  Pro- 
fession. Whatever  may  be  thought  of  the  matter 
of  this  scene,  its  movement  is  excellent.  After  a 
short,  sharp  opening,  which  reveals  to  Mrs.  Warren 
the  unfilial  dispositions  of  her  daughter,  and  re- 
duces her  to  whimpering  dismay,  the  following 
little  passage  occurs : 

MRS.  WARREN  :  You  're  very  rough  with  me, 
Vivie. 

VIVIE  :  Nonsense.  What  about  bed  ?  It 's  past 
ten. 

MRS.  WARREN  (passionately)  :  What 's  the  use 
of  my  going  to  bed ?  Do  you  think  I  could  sleep? 

VIVIE:  Why  not?    I  shall. 

Then  the  mother  turns  upon  the  daughter's 
stony  self-righteousness,  and  pours  forth  her  sor- 
did history  in  such  a  way  as  to  throw  a  searchlight 


THE    PERIPETY  271 

on  the  conditions  which  make  such  histories  pos- 
sible; until,  exhausted  by  her  outburst,  she  says, 
"  Oh  dear !  I  do  believe  I  am  getting  sleepy  after 
all,"  and  Vivie  replies,  "  I  believe  it  is  I  who  will 
not  be  able  to  sleep  now."  Mr.  Shaw,  we  see,  is 
at  pains  to  emphasize  his  peripety. 

Some  "  great  scenes  "  consist,  not  of  one  de- 
cisive turning  of  the  tables,  but  of  a  whole  series 
of  minor  vicissitudes  of  fortune.  Such  a  scene 
is  the  third  act  of  The  Gay  Lord  Quex,  a  pro- 
longed and  thrilling  duel,  in  which  Sophy  Full- 
garney  passes  by  degrees  from  impertinent  exulta- 
tion to  abject  surrender  and  then  springs  up  again 
to  a  mood  of  reckless  defiance.  In  the  "  great 
scene  "  of  The  Thunderbolt,  on  the  other  hand  — 
the  scene  of  Thaddeus's  false  confession  of  having 
destroyed  his  brother's  will  —  though  there  is,  in 
fact,  a  great  peripety,  it  is  not  that  which  attracts 
and  absorbs  our  interest.  All  the  greedy  Morti- 
more  family  fall  from  the  height  of  jubilant  confi- 
dence in  their  new-found  wealth  to  the  depth  of 
disappointment  and  exasperation.  But  this  is  not 
the  aspect  of  the  scene  which  grips  and  moves  us. 
Our  attention  is  centred  on  Thaddeus's  struggle  to 
take  his  wife's  misdeed  upon  himself;  and  his 
failure  cannot  be  described  as  a  peripety,  seeing 
that  it  sinks  him  only  one  degree  lower  in  the 
slough  of  despair.  Like  the  scene  in  Mrs.  Dane's 
Defence,  this  is  practically  a  piece  of  judicial  drama 
—  a  hard- fought  cross-examination.  But  as  there 
is  no  reversal  of  fortune  for  the  character  in  whom 


272  PLAY-MAKING 

we  are  chiefly  interested,  it  scarcely  ranks  as  a 
scene  of  peripety.1 

Before  leaving  this  subject,  we  may  note  that  a 
favourite  effect  of  romantic  drama  is  an  upward 
reversal  of  fortune  through  the  recognition  —  the 
anagnorisis  —  of  some  great  personage  in  disguise. 
Victor  Hugo  excelled  in  the  superb  gestures  ap- 
propriate to  such  a  scene:  witness  the  passage  in 
Hernani,  before  the  tomb  of  Charlemagne,  where 
the  obscure  bandit  claims  the  right  to  take  his 
place  at  the  head  of  the  princes  and  nobles  whom 
the  newly-elected  Emperor  has  ordered  off  to 
execution : 


HERNANI  : 

Dieu  qui  donne  le  sceptre  et  qui  te  le  donna 
M'a  fait  due  de  Segorbe  et  due  de  Cardona, 
Marquis  de  Monroy,  comte  Albatera,  vicomte 
De  Gor,  seigneur  de  lieux  dont  j 'ignore  le  compte. 
Je  suis  Jean  d'Aragon,  grand  maitre  d'Avis,  n6 
Dans  1'exil,  fils  proscrit  d'un  pere  assassine 
Par  sentence  du  tien,  roi  Carlos  de  Castille. 
*  *  *  * 

(Aux  autres  conjures} 
Couvrons  nous,  grands  d'Espagne !  — 

(Tous  les  Espagnols  se  couvreni) 

Oui,  nos  tetes,  6  roi! 
Ont  le  droit  de  tomber  couvertes  devant  toil 


1  One  of  the  most  striking  peripeties  in  recent  English 
drama  occurs  in  the  third  act  of  The  Builder  of  Bridges,  by 
Mr.  Alfred  Sutro. 


THE    PERIPETY  273 

An  effective  scene  of  this  type  occurs  in  Monsieur 
Beaucaire,  where  the  supposed  hairdresser  is  on 
the  point  of  being  ejected  with  contumely  from  the 
pump-room  at  Bath,  when  the  French  Ambassador 
enters,  drops  on  his  knee,  kisses  the  young  man's 
hand,  and  presents  him  to  the  astounded  company 
as  the  Due  d'Orleans,  Comte  de  Valois,  and  I  know 
not  what  besides  —  a  personage  who  immeasurably 
outshines  the  noblest  of  his  insulters.  Quieter,  but 
not  less  telling,  is  the  peripety  in  The  Little  Father 
of  the  Wilderness,  by  Messrs.  Lloyd  Osbourne  and 
Austin  Strong.  The  Pere  Marlotte,  who,  by  his 
heroism  and  self-devotion,  has  added  vast  terri- 
tories to  the  French  possessions  in  America,  is 
summoned  to  the  court  of  Louis  XV,  and  natur- 
ally concludes  that  the  king  has  heard  of  his 
services  and  wishes  to  reward  them.  He  finds, 
on  the  contrary,  that  he  is  wanted  merely  to 
decide  a  foolish  bet;  and  he  is  treated  with  the 
grossest  insolence  and  contempt.  Just  as  he  is 
departing  in  humiliation,  the  Governor-General  of 
Canada  arrives,  with  a  suite  of  officers  and 
Indians.  The  moment  they  are  aware  of  Pere 
Marlotte's  presence,  they  all  kneel  to  him  and  pay 
him  deeper  homage  than  they  have  paid  to  the 
king,  who  accepts  the  rebuke  and  joins  in  their 
demonstration. 

A  famous  peripety  of  the  romantic  order  occurs 
in  H.M.S.  Pinafore,  where,  on  the  discovery  that 
Captain  Corcoran  and  Ralph  Rackstraw  have  been 
changed  at  birth,  Ralph  instantly  becomes  captain 


274  PLAY-MAKING 

of  the  ship,  while  the  captain  declines  into  an 
able-bodied  seaman.  This  is  one  of  the  instances 
in  which  the  idealism  of  art  ekes  out  the  imper- 
fections of  reality. 


XV 
PROBABILITY,    CHANCE   AND   COINCIDENCE 

A  RISTOTLE  indulges  in  an  often-quoted  para- 
•**•  dox  to  the  effect  that,  in  drama,  the  probable 
impossible  is  to  be  preferred  to  the  improbable 
possible.  With  all  respect,  this  seems  to  be  a  some- 
what cumbrous  way  of  stating  the  fact  that  plausi- 
bility is  of  more  importance  on  the  stage  than  what 
may  be  called  demonstrable  probability.  There  is 
no  time,  in  the  rush  of  a  dramatic  action,  for  a 
mathematical  calculation  of  the  chances  for  and 
against  a  given  event,  or  for  experimental  proof 
that  such  and  such  a  thing  can  or  cannot  be  done. 
If  a  thing  seem  plausible,  an  audience  will  accept 
it  without  cavil;  if  it  seem  incredible  on  the  face 
of  it,  no  evidence  of  its  credibility  will  be  of  much 
avail.  This  is  merely  a  corollary  from  the  funda- 
mental principle  that  the  stage  is  the  realm  of 
appearances,  not  of  realities,  where  paste  jewels  are 
at  least  as  effective  as  real  ones,  and  a  painted 
forest  is  far  more  sylvan  than  a  few  wilted  and 
drooping  saplings,  insecurely  planted  upon  the 
boards. 

That  is  why  an  improbable  or  otherwise  inac- 
ceptable  incident  cannot  be  validly  defended  on  the 

275 


PLAY-MAKING 

plea  that  it  actually  happened :  that  it  is  on  record 
in  history  or  in  the  newspapers.  In  the  first  place, 
the  dramatist  can  never  put  it  on  the  stage  as  it 
happened.  The  bare  fact  may  be  historical,  but  it 
is  not  the  bare  fact  that  matters.  The  dramatist 
cannot  restore  it  to  its  place  in  that  intricate  plexus 
of  cause  and  effect,  which  is  the  essence  and  mean- 
ing of  reality.  He  can  only  give  his  interpretation 
of  the  fact;  and  one  knows  not  how  to  calculate 
the  chances  that  his  interpretation  may  be  a  false 
one.  But  even  if  this  difficulty  could  be  overcome; 
if  the  dramatist  could  prove  that  he  had  reproduced 
the  event  with  photographic  and  cinematographic 
accuracy,  his  position  would  not  thereby  be  im- 
proved. He  would  still  have  failed  in  his  peculiar 
task,  which  is  precisely  that  of  interpretation.  Not 
truth,  but  verisimilitude,  is  his  aim ;  for  the  stage 
is  the  realm  of  appearances,  in  which  intrusive 
realities  become  unreal.  There  are,  as  I  have  said, 
incalculable  chances  to  one  that  the  playwright's 
version  of  a  given  event  will  not  coincide  with  that 
of  the  Recording  Angel:  but  it  may  be  true  and 
convincing  in  relation  to  human  nature  in  general, 
in  which  case  it  will  belong  to  the  sphere  of  great 
art;  or,  on  a  lower  level,  it  may  be  agreeable  and 
entertaining  without  being  conspicuously  false  to 
human  nature,  in  which  case  it  will  do  no  harm, 
since  it  makes  no  pretence  to  historic  truth.  It 
may  be  objected  that  the  sixteenth-century  public, 
and  even,  in  the  next  century,  the  great  Duke  of 
Marlborough,  got  their  knowledge  of  English  his- 


CHANCE  AND  COINCIDENCE      277 

tory  from  Shakespeare,  and  the  other  writers  of 
chronicle-plays.  Well,  I  leave  it  to  historians  to 
determine  whether  this  very  defective  and,  in  great 
measure,  false  vision  of  the  past  was  better  or 
worse  than  none.  The  danger  at  any  rate,  if  dan- 
ger there  was,  is  now  past  and  done  with.  Even 
our  generals  no  longer  go  to  the  theatre  or  to 
the  First  Folio  for  their  history.  The  dramatist 
may,  with  an  easy  conscience,  interpret  historic 
fact  in  the  light  of  his  general  insight  into  human 
nature,  so  long  as  he  does  not  so  falsify  the 
recorded  event  that  common  knowledge  cries  out 
against  him.1 

Plausibility,  then,  not  abstract  or  concrete  prob- 
ability, and  still  less  literal  faithfulness  to  recorded 
fact,  is  what  the  dramatist  is  bound  to  aim  at. 
To  understand  this  as  a  belittling  of  his  art  is 
to  misunderstand  the  nature  of  art  in  general. 
The  plausibility  of  bad  art  is  doubtless  contemptible 
and  may  be  harmful.  But  to  say  that  good  art 
must  be  plausible  is  only  to  say  that  not  every  sort 
of  truth,  or  every  aspect  of  truth,  is  equally  suit- 
able for  artistic  representation  —  or,  in  more  gen- 
eral terms,  that  the  artist,  without  prejudice  to  his 

1  The  malignant  caricature  of  Cromwell  in  W.  G.  Wills' 
Charles  I  did  not,  indeed,  prevent  the  acceptance  of  the 
play  by  the  mid-Victorian  public;  but  it  will  certainly 
shorten  the  life  of  the  one  play  which  might  have  secured 
for  its  author  a  lasting  place  in  dramatic  literature.  It  is 
unimaginable  that  future  generations  should  accept  a  repre- 
sentation of  Cromwell  as 

"  A  mouthing  patriot,  with  an  itching  palm, 
In  one  hand  menace,  in  the  other  greed." 


278  PLAY-MAKING 

allegiance  to  nature,  must  respect  the  conditions  of 
the  medium  in  which  he  works. 

Our  standards  of  plausibility,  however,  are  far 
from  being  invariable.  To  each  separate  form  of 
art,  a  different  standard  is  applicable.  In  what 
may  roughly  be  called  realistic  art,  the  terms  plausi- 
ble and  probable  are  very  nearly  interchangeable. 
Where  the  dramatist  appeals  to  the  sanction  of  our 
own  experience  and  knowledge,  he  must  not  intro- 
duce matter  against  which  our  experience  and 
knowledge  cry  out.  A  very  small  inaccuracy  in 
a  picture  which  is  otherwise  photographic  will  often 
have  a  very  disturbing  effect.  In  plays  of  society  in 
particular,  the  criticism  "  No  one  does  such  things," 
is  held  by  a  large  class  of  playgoers  to  be  conclu- 
sive and  destructive.  One  has  known  people  de- 
spise a  play  because  Lady  So-and-so's  manner  of 
speaking  to  her  servants  was  not  what  they  (the 
cavillers)  were  accustomed  to.  On  the  other  hand, 
one  has  heard  a  whole  production  highly  applauded 
because  the  buttons  on  a  particular  uniform  were 
absolutely  right.  This  merely  means  that  when  an 
effort  after  literal  accuracy  is  apparent,  the  atten- 
tion of  the  audience  seizes  on  the  most  trifling 
details  and  is  apt  to  magnify  their  importance. 
Niceties  of  language  in  especial  are  keenly,  and 
often  unjustly,  criticized.  If  a  particular  expres- 
sion does  not  happen  to  be  current  in  the  critic's 
own  circle,  he  concludes  that  nobody  uses  it,  and 
that  the  author  is  a  pedant  or  a  vulgarian.  In  view 
of  this  inevitable  tendency,  the  prudent  dramatist 


CHANCE  AND  COINCIDENCE      279 

will  try  to  keep  out  of  his  dialogue  expressions  that 
are  peculiar  to  his  own  circle,  and  to  use  only 
what  may  be  called  everybody's  English,  or  the 
language  undoubtedly  current  throughout  the  whole 
class  to  which  his  personage  belongs. 

It  may  be  here  pointed  out  that  there  are  three 
different  planes  on  which  plausibility  may,  or  may 
not,  be  achieved.  There  is  first  the  purely  external 
plane,  which  concerns  the  producer  almost  as  much 
as  the  playwright.  On  this  plane  we  look  for 
plausibility  of  costume,  of  manners,  of  dialect,  of 
general  environment.  Then  we  have  plausibility  of 
what  may  be  called  uncharacteristic  event  —  of 
such  events  as  are  independent  of  the  will  of  the 
characters,  and  are  not  conditioned  by  their  psy- 
chology. On  this  plane  we  have  to  deal  with  chance 
and  accident,  coincidence,  and  all  "  circumstances 
over  which  we  have  no  control."  For  instance,  the 
playwright  who  makes  the  "  Marseillaise  "  become 
popular  throughout  Paris  within  half-an-hour  of  its 
having  left  the  composer's  desk,  is  guilty  of  a 
breach  of  plausibility  on  this  plane.  So,  too,  if 
I  were  to  make  my  hero  enter  Parliament  for  the 
first  time,  and  rise  in  a  single  session  to  be  Prime 
Minister  of  England  —  there  would  be  no  absolute 
impossibility  in  the  feat,  but  it  would  be  a  rather 
gross  improbability  of  the  second  order.  On  the 
third  plane  we  come  to  psychological  plausibility, 
the  plausibility  of  events  dependent  mainly  or  en- 
tirely on  character.  For  example  —  to  cite  a  much 
disputed  instance  —  is  it  plausible  that  Nora,  in 


280  PLAY-MAKING 

A  Doll's  House,  should  suddenly  develop  the 
mastery  of  dialectics  with  which  she  crushes  Hel- 
mer  in  the  final  scene,  and  should  desert  her  hus- 
band and  children,  slamming  the  door  behind 
her? 

It  need  scarcely  be  said  that  plausibility  on  the 
third  plane  is  vastly  the  most  important.  A  very 
austere  criticism  might  even  call  it  the  one  thing 
worth  consideration.  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
when  we  speak  of  plausibility,  it  is  almost  always 
the  second  plane  —  the  plane  of  uncharacteristic 
circumstance  —  that  we  have  in  mind.  To  plausi- 
bility of  the  third  order  we  give  a  more  imposing 
name  —  we  call  it  truth.  We  say  that  Nora's  action 
is  true  —  or  untrue  —  to  nature.  We  speak  of  the 
truth  with  which  the  madness  of  Lear,  the  malig- 
nity of  lago,  the  race-hatred  of  Shylock,  is  por- 
trayed. Truth,  in  fact,  is  the  term  which  we  use 
in  cases  where  the  tests  to  be  applied  are  those  of 
introspection,  intuition,  or  knowledge  sub-con- 
sciously garnered  from  spiritual  experience.  Where 
the  tests  are  external,  and  matters  of  common 
knowledge  or  tangible  evidence,  we  speak  of 
plausibility. 

It  would  be  a  mistake,  however,  to  imagine  that 
because  plausibility  of  the  third  degree,  or  truth, 
is  the  noblest  attribute  of  drama,  it  is  therefore 
the  one  thing  needful.  In  some  forms  of  drama  it 
is  greatly  impaired,  or  absolutely  nullified,  if  plausi- 
bility of  the  second  degree,  its  necessary  prelimi- 
nary, be  not  carefully  secured.  In  the  case  above 


CHANCE  AND  COINCIDENCE      281 

imagined,  for  instance,  of  the  young  politician 
who  should  become  Prime  Minister  immediately 
on  entering  Parliament :  it  would  matter  nothing 
with  what  profundity  of  knowledge  or  subtlety 
of  skill  the  character  was  drawn:  we  should 
none  the  less  decline  to  believe  in  him.  Some 
dramatists,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  find  it  much  easier 
to  attain  truth  of  character  than  plausibility  of  inci- 
dent. Every  one  who  is  in  the  habit  of  reading 
manuscript  plays,  must  have  come  across  the  would- 
be  playwright  who  has  a  good  deal  of  general 
ability  and  a  considerable  power  of  characteriza- 
tion, but  seems  to  be  congenitally  deficient  in  the 
sense  of  external  reality,  so  that  the  one  thing  he 
(or  she)  can  by  no  means  do  is  to  invent  or  con- 
duct an  action  that  shall  be  in  the  least  like  any 
sequence  of  events  in  real  life.  It  is  naturally 
difficult  to  give  examples,  for  the  plays  composed 
under  this  curious  limitation  are  apt  to  remain  in 
manuscript,  or  to  be  produced  for  one  performance, 
and  forgotten.  There  is,  however,  one  recent  play 
of  this  order  which  holds  a  certain  place  in  dramatic 
literature.  I  do  not  know  that  Mr.  Granville 
Barker  was  well-advised  in  printing  The  Marrying 
of  Anne  Leete  along  with  such  immeasurably  ma- 
turer  and  saner  productions  as  The  Voysey  Inheri- 
tance and  Waste;  but  by  doing  so  he  has  served  my 
present  purpose  in  providing  me  with  a  perfect 
example  of  a  play  as  to  which  we  cannot  tell 
whether  it  possesses  plausibility  of  the  third  de- 
gree, so  absolutely  does  it  lack  that  plausibility  of 


282  PLAY-MAKING 

the  second  degree  which  is  its  indispensable  con- 
dition precedent. 

Francisque  Sarcey  was  fond  of  insisting  that  an 
audience  would  generally  accept  without  cavil  any 
postulates  in  reason  which  an  author  chose  to  im- 
pose upon  it,  with  regard  to  events  supposed  to 
have  occurred  before  the  rise  of  the  curtain; 
always  provided  that  the  consequences  deduced 
from  them  within  the  limits  of  the  play  were 
logical,  plausible,  and  entertaining.  The  public 
will  swallow  a  camel,  he  would  maintain,  in  the 
past,  though  they  will  strain  at  a  gnat  in  the 
present.  A  classical  example  of  this  principle  is 
(once  more)  the  Oedipus  Rex,  in  which  several 
of  the  initial  postulates  are  wildly  improbable :  for 
instance,  that  Oedipus  should  never  have  inquired 
into  the  circumstances  of  the  death  of  Laius,  and 
that,  having  been  warned  by  an  oracle  that  he  was 
doomed  to  marry  his  mother,  he  should  not  have 
been  careful,  before  marrying  any  woman,  to  ascer- 
tain that  she  was  younger  than  himself.  There  is 
at  least  so  much  justification  for  Sarcey 's  favourite 
principle,  that  we  are  less  apt  to  scrutinize  things 
merely  narrated  to  us  than  events  which  take  place 
before  our  eyes.  It  is  simply  a  special  instance  of 
the  well-worn 

"  Segnius  irritant  animps  demissa  per  aurem 
Quam  quae  sunt  oculis  subjecta  fidelibus." 

But  the  principle  is  of  very  limited  artistic  validity. 
No  one  would  nowadays  think  of  justifying  a  gross 


CHANCE  AND  COINCIDENCE      283 

improbability  in  the  antecedents  of  a  play  by  Ibsen 
or  Sir  Arthur  Pinero,  by  Mr.  Galsworthy  or  Mr. 
Granville  Barker,  on  the  plea  that  it  occurred  out- 
side the  frame  of  the  picture.  Such  a  plea  might, 
indeed,  secure  a  mitigation  of  sentence,  but  never 
a  verdict  of  acquittal.  Sarcey,  on  the  other  hand, 
brought  up  in  the  school  of  the  "  well-made  "  play, 
would  rather  have  held  it  a  feather  in  the  play- 
wright's cap  that  he  should  have  known  just  where, 
and  just  how,  he  might  safely  outrage  probability.1 
The  inference  is  that  we  now  take  the  dramatist's 
art  more  seriously  than  did  the  generation  of  the 
Second  Empire  in  France. 

This  brings  us,  however,  to  an  important  fact, 
which  must  by  no  means  be  overlooked.  There 
is  a  large  class  of  plays  —  or  rather,  there  are  sev- 
eral classes  of  plays,  some  of  them  not  at  all  to 
be  despised  —  the  charm  of  which  resides,  not  in 
probability,  but  in  ingenious  and  delightful  improb- 
ability. I  am,  of  course,  not  thinking  of  sheer 
fantasies,  like  A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream,  or 
Peter  Pan,  or  The  Blue  Bird.  They  may,  indeed, 
possess  plausibility  of  the  third  order,  but  plausi- 
bility of  the  second  order  has  no  application  to 
them.  Its  writs  do  not  run  on  their  extramundane 
plane.  The  plays  which  appeal  to  us  in  virtue  of 

1  It  is  only  fair  to  say  that  Sarcey  drew  a  distinction  be- 
tween antecedent  events  and  what  he  calls  "  postulates  of 
character."  He  did  not  maintain  that  an  audience  ought  to 
accept  a  psychological  impossibility,  merely  because  it  was 
placed  outside  the  frame  of  the  picture.  See  Quarante  Arts 
de  Theatre,  vii.,  p.  395. 


284  PLAY-MAKING 

their  pleasant  departures  from  probability  are  ro- 
mances, farces,  a  certain  order  of  light  comedies 
and  semi-comic  melodramas  —  in  short,  the  thou- 
sand and  one  plays  in  which  the  author,  without 
altogether  despising  and  abjuring  truth,  makes  it 
on  principle  subsidiary  to  delightfulness.  Plays  of 
the  Prisoner  of  Zenda  type  would  come  under  this 
head:  so  would  Sir  Arthur  Pinero's  farces,  The 
Magistrate,  The  Schoolmistress,  Dandy  Dick;  so 
would  Mr.  Carton's  light  comedies,  Lord  and  Lady 
Algy,  Wheels  ivithin  Wheels,  Lady  Hitntworth' s 
Experiment;  so  would  most  of  Mr.  Barrie's  come- 
dies; so  would  Mr.  Arnold  Bennett's  play,  The 
Honeymoon.  In  a  previous  chapter  I  have  sketched 
the  opening  act  of  Mr.  Carton's  Wheels  within 
Wheels,  which  is  a  typical  example  of  this  style 
of  work.  Its  charm  lies  in  a  subtle,  all-pervading 
improbability,  an  infusion  of  fantasy  so  delicate 
that,  while  at  no  point  can  one  say,  "  This  is  im- 
possible," the  total  effect  is  far  more  entertaining 
than  that  of  any  probable  sequence  of  events  in 
real  life.  The  whole  atmosphere  of  such  a  play 
should  be  impregnated  with  humour,  without  reach- 
ing that  gross  supersaturation  which  we  find  in  the 
lower  order  of  farce  —  plays  of  the  type  of 
Charlie's  Aunt  or  Niobe. 

Plausibility  of  development,  as  distinct  from 
plausibility  of  theme  or  of  character,  depends  very 
largely  on  the  judicious  handling  of  chance,  and 
the  exclusion,  or  very  sparing  employment,  of 


CHANCE  AND  COINCIDENCE      285 

coincidence.  This  is  a  matter  of  importance,  into 
which  we  shall  find  it  worth  while  to  look  some- 
what closely. 

It  is  not  always  clearly  recognized  that  chance 
and  coincidence  are  by  no  means  the  same  thing. 
Coincidence  is  a  special  and  complex  form  of 
chance,  which  ought  by  no  means  to  be  confounded 
with  the  every-day  variety.  We  need  not  here 
analyse  chance,  or  discuss  the  philosophic  value  of 
the  term.  It  is  enough  that  we  all  know  what  we 
mean  by  it  in  common  parlance.  It  may  be  well, 
however,  to  look  into  the  etymology  of  the  two 
words  we  are  considering.  They  both  come  ulti- 
mately, from  the  Latin  "  cadere,"  to  fall.  Chance 
is  a  falling-out,  like  that  of  a  die  from  the  dice- 
box;  and  coincidence  signifies  one  falling-out  on 
the  top  of  another,  the  concurrent  happening  of  two 
or  more  chances  which  resemble  or  somehow  fit 
into  each  other.  If  you  rattle  six  dice  in  a  box 
and  throw  them,  and  they  turn  up  at  haphazard  — 
say,  two  aces,  a  deuce,  two  fours,  and  a  six  — 
there  is  nothing  remarkable  in  this  falling  out. 
But  if  they  all  turn  up  sixes,  you  at  once  suspect 
that  the  dice  are  cogged ;  and  if  that  be  not  so  — 
if  there  be  no  sufficient  cause  behind  the  phe- 
nomenon—  you  say  that  this  identical  falling-out 
of  six  separate  possibilities  was  a  remarkable  coin- 
cidence. Now,  applying  the  illustration  to  drama, 
I  should  say  that  the  playwright  is  perfectly  justi- 
fied in  letting  chance  play  its  probable  and  even 
inevitable  part  in  the  affairs  of  his  characters;  but 


286  PLAY-MAKING 

that,  the  moment  we  suspect  him  of  cogging  the 
dice,  we  feel  that  he  is  taking  an  unfair  advan- 
tage of  us,  and  our  imagination  either  cries,  "  I 
won't  play !  "  or  continues  the  game  under  protest. 
Some  critics  have  considered  it  a  flaw  in  Shake- 
speare's art  that  the  catastrophe  of  Romeo  and 
Juliet  should  depend  upon  a  series  of  chances,  and 
especially  on  the  miscarriage  of  the  Friar's  letter 
to  Romeo.  This  is  not,  I  think,  a  valid  criticism. 
We  may,  if  we  are  so  minded,  pick  to  pieces  the 
course  of  action  which  brought  these  chances  into 
play.  The  device  of  the  potion  —  even  if  such  a 
drug  were  known  to  the  pharmacopoeia  —  is  cer- 
tainly a  very  clumsy  method  of  escape  from  the 
position  in  which  Juliet  is  placed  by  her  father's 
obstinacy.  But  when  once  we  have  accepted  that 
integral  part  of  the  legend,  the  intervention  of 
chance  in  the  catastrophe  is  entirely  natural  and 
probable.  Observe  that  there  is  no  coincidence  in 
the  matter,  no  interlinking  or  dovetailing  of 
chances.  The  catastrophe  results  from  the  hot- 
headed impetuosity  of  all  the  characters,  which 
so  hurries  events  that  there  is  no  time  for  the 
elimination  of  the  results  of  chance.  Letters  do 
constantly  go  astray,  even  under  our  highly-organ- 
ized system  of  conveyance;  but  their  delay  or 
disappearance  seldom  leads  to  tragic  results,  because 
most  of  us  have  learnt  to  take  things  calmly  and 
wait  for  the  next  post.  Yet  if  we  could  survey 
the  world  at  large,  it  is  highly  probable  that  every 
day  or  every  hour  we  should  somewhere  or  other 


CHANCE  AND  COINCIDENCE      287 

find  some  Romeo  on  the  verge  of  committing  sui- 
cide because  of  a  chance  misunderstanding  with 
regard  to  his  Juliet;  and  in  a  certain  percentage 
of  cases  the  explanatory  letter  or  telegram  would 
doubtless  arrive  too  late. 

We  all  remember  how,  in  Mr.  Hardy's  Tess,  the 
main  trouble  arises  from  the  fact  that  the  letter 
pushed  under  Angel  Clare's  door  slips  also  under 
the  carpet  of  his  room,  and  so  is  never  discovered. 
This  is  an  entirely  probable  chance;  and  the 
sternest  criticism  would  hardly  call  it  a  flaw  in 
the  structure  of  the  fable.  But  take  another  case : 
Madame  X.  has  had  a  child,  of  whom  she  has  lost 
sight  for  more  than  twenty  years,  during  which 
she  has  lived  abroad.  She  returns  to  France,  and 
immediately  on  landing  at  Bordeaux  she  kills  a 
man  who  accompanies  her.  The  court  assigns  her 
defence  to  a  young  advocate,  and  this  young  advo- 
cate happens  to  be  her  son.  We  have  here  a  piling 
of  chance  upon  chance,  in  which  the  long  arm  of 
coincidence  *  is  very  apparent.  The  coincidence 
would  have  been  less  startling  had  she  returned  to 
the  place  where  she  left  her  son  and  where  she  be- 
lieved him  to  be.  But  no!  she  left  him  in  Paris, 
and  it  is  only  by  a  series  of  pure  chances  that  he 

1  This  phrase,  which  occurs  in  Mr.  Haddon  Chambers's 
romantic  melodrama,  Captain  Swift,  was  greeted  with  a 
burst  of  laughter  by  the  first-night  audience ;  but  little  did 
we  then  think  that  Mr.  Chambers  was  enriching  the  English 
language.  It  is  not,  on  examination,  a  particularly  luminous 
phrase :  "  the  three  or  four  arms  of  coincidence "  would 
really  be  more  to  the  point.  But  it  is  not  always  the  most 
accurate  expression  that  is  fittest  to  survive. 


288  PLAY-MAKING 

happens  to  be  in  Bordeaux,  where  she  happens  to 
land,  and  happens  to  shoot  a  man.  For  the  sake 
of  a  certain  order  of  emotional  effect,  a  certain 
order  of  audience  is  willing  to  accept  this  piling 
up  of  chances;  but  it  relegates  the  play  to  a  low 
and  childish  plane  of  art.  The  Oedipus  Rex,  in- 
deed —  which  meets  us  at  every  turn  —  is  founded 
on  an  absolutely  astounding  series  of  coincidences ; 
but  here  the  conception  of  fate  comes  in,  and  we 
vaguely  figure  to  ourselves  some  malignant  power 
deliberately  pulling  the  strings  which  guide  its 
puppets  into  such  abhorrent  tangles.  On  the  mod- 
ern view  that  "  character  is  destiny,"  the  conception 
of  supernatural  wire-pulling  is  excluded.  It  is 
true  that  amazing  coincidences  do  occur  in  life; 
but  when  they  are  invented  to  serve  an  artist's 
purposes,  we  feel  that  he  is  simplifying  his  task 
altogether  beyond  reason,  and  substituting  for  nor- 
mal and  probable  development  an  irrelevant  plunge 
into  the  merely  marvellous. 

Of  the  abuse  of  coincidence,  I  have  already  given 
a  specimen  in  speaking  of  The  Rise  of  Dick  Hal- 
ward  (Chapter  XII).  One  or  two  more  examples 
may  not  be  out  of  place.  I  need  not  dwell  on  the 
significance  of  the  fact  that  most  of  them  occur 
in  forgotten  plays. 

In  The  Man  of  Forty,  by  Mr.  Walter  Frith,  we 
find  the  following  conjuncture  of  circumstances : 
Mr.  Lewis  Dunster  has  a  long-lost  wife  and  a  long- 
lost  brother.  He  has  been  for  years  in  South 
Africa ;  they  have  meanwhile  lived  in  London,  but 


CHANCE  AND  COINCIDENCE      289 

they  do  not  know  each  other,  and  have  held  no 
communication.  Lewis,  returning  from  Africa, 
arrives  in  London.  He  does  not  know  where  to 
find  either  wife  or  brother,  and  has  not  the  slightest 
wish  to  look  for  them;  yet  in  the  first  house  he 
goes  to,  the  home  of  a  lady  whose  acquaintance  he 
chanced  to  make  on  the  voyage,  he  encounters  both 
his  wife  and  his  brother!  Not  quite  so  startling 
is  the  coincidence  on  which  Mrs.  Willoughby's 
Kiss,  by  Mr.  Frank  Stayton,  is  founded.  An  upper 
and  lower  flat  in  West  Kensington  are  inhabited, 
respectively,  by  Mrs.  Brandram  and  Mrs.  Wil- 
loughby,  whose  husbands  have  both  been  many 
years  absent  in  India.  By  pure  chance  the  two 
husbands  come  home  in  the  same  ship;  the  two 
wives  go  to  Plymouth  to  meet  them,  and  by  pure 
chance,  for  they  are  totally  unacquainted  with  each 
other,  they  go  to  the  same  hotel;  whence  it  hap- 
pens that  Mrs.  Willoughby,  meeting  Mr.  Brandram 
in  a  half -lighted  room,  takes  him  for  her  husband, 
flies  to  his  arms  and  kisses  him.  More  elaborate 
than  either  of  these  is  the  tangle  of  coincidences 
in  Mr.  Stuart  Ogilvie's  play,  The  White  Knight  — 

Giulietta,  the  ward  of  David  Pennycuick,  goes  to 
study  singing  at  Milan.  Mr.  Harry  Rook,  Penny- 
cuick's  most  intimate  friend,  meets  her  by  chance  in 
Milan,  and  she  becomes  his  mistress,  neither  having 
the  least  idea  that  the  other  knows  Pennycuick. 
Then  Viscount  Hintlesham,  like  Pennycuick,  a  dupe 
of  Rook's,  meets  her  by  chance  at  Monte  Carlo  and 
falls  in  love  with  her.  He  does  not  know  that  she 


290  PLAY-MAKING 

knows  Rook  or  Pennycuick,  and  she  does  not  know 
that  he  knows  them.  Arriving-  in  England,  she  finds 
in  the  manager,  the  promoter,  and  the  chairman  of 
the  Electric  White  Lead  Company  her  guardian,  her 
seducer,  and  her  lover.  When  she  comes  to  see  her 
guardian,  the  first  person  she  meets  is  her  seducer, 
and  she  learns  that  her  lover  has  just  left  the  house. 
Up  to  that  moment,  I  repeat,  she  did  not  know  that 
any  one  of  these  men  knew  any  other;  yet  she  does 
not  even  say,  "  How  small  the  world  is !  " x  Surely 
some  such  observation  was  obligatory  under  the 
circumstances. 

Let  us  turn  now  to  a  more  memorable  piece  of 
work ;  that  interesting  play  of  Sir  Arthur  Pinero's 
transition  period,  The  Profligate.  Here  the  great 
situation  of  the  third  act  is  brought  about  by  a 
chain  of  coincidences  which  would  be  utterly  un- 
thinkable in  the  author's  maturer  work.  Leslie 

1  The  abuse  of  coincidence  is  a  legacy  to  modern  drama 
from  the  Latin  comedy,  which,  again,  was  founded  on  the 
Greek  New  Comedy.  It  is  worth  noting  that  in  the  days  of 
Menander  the  world  really  was  much  smaller  than  it  is 
to-day,  when  "  thalassic  "  has  grown  into  "  oceanic  "  civiliza- 
tion. Travellers  in  those  days  followed  a  few  main  routes; 
half  a  dozen  great  seaports  were  rendezvous  for  all  the 
world;  the  slave-trade  was  active,  and  kidnappings  and  ab- 
ductions with  the  corresponding  meetings  and  recognitions 
were  no  doubt  frequent.  Thus  such  a  plot  as  that  of  the 
Menaechmi  was  by  no  means  the  sheer  impossibility  which 
Shakespeare  made  it  by  attaching  indistinguishable  Dromios 
to  his  indistinguishable  Antipholuses.  To  reduplicate  a  co- 
incidence is  in  fact  to  multiply  it  by  a  figure  far  beyond  my 
mathematics.  It  may  be  noted,  too,  that  the  practice  of  ex- 
posing children,  on  which  the  Oedipus,  and  many  plays  of 
Menander,  are  founded,  was  common  in  historic  Greece,  and 
that  the  hapless  children  were  generally  provided  with  iden- 
tification-tokens (gnorismata) . 


CHANCE  AND  COINCIDENCE      291 

Brudenell,  the  heroine,  is  the  ward  of  Mr.  Cheal, 
a  solicitor.  She  is  to  be  married  to  Dunstan  Ren- 
shaw;  and,  as  she  has  no  home,  the  bridal  party 
meets  at  Mr.  Cheal's  office  before  proceeding  to 
the  registrar's.  No  sooner  have  they  departed  than 
Janet  Preece,  who  has  been  betrayed  and  deserted 
by  Dunstan  Renshaw  (under  an  assumed  name) 
comes  to  the  office  to  state  her  piteous  case.  This 
is  not  in  itself  a  pure  coincidence ;  for  Janet  hap- 
pened to  come  to  London  in  the  same  train  with 
Leslie  Brudenell  and  her  brother  Wilfrid;  and 
Wilfrid,  seeing  in  her  a  damsel  in  distress,  recom- 
mended her  to  lay  her  troubles  before  a  respectable 
solicitor,  giving  her  Mr.  Cheal's  address.  So  far, 
then,  the  coincidence  is  not  startling.  It  is  natural 
enough  that  Renshaw's  mistress  and  his  betrothed 
should  live  in  the  same  country  town ;  and  it  is 
not  improbable  that  they  should  come  to  London 
by  the  same  train,  and  that  Wilfrid  Brudenell 
should  give  the  bewildered  and  weeping  young 
woman  a  commonplace  piece  of  advice.  The 
concatenation  of  circumstances  is  remarkable  rather 
than  improbable.  But  when,  in  the  next  act,  not 
a  month  later,  Janet  Preece,  by  pure  chance,  drops 
in  at  the  Florentine  villa  where  Renshaw  and  Leslie 
are  spending  their  honeymoon,  we  feel  that  the 
long  arm  of  coincidence  is  stretched  to  its  utter- 
most, and  that  even  the  thrilling  situation  which 
follows  is  very  dearly  bought.  It  would  not  have 
been  difficult  to  attenuate  the  coincidence.  What 
has  actually  happened  is  this:  Janet  has  (we  know 


292  PLAY-MAKING 

not  how)  become  a  sort  of  maid-companion  to 
a  Mrs.  Stonehay,  whose  daughter  was  a  school- 
friend  of  Leslie's;  the  Stonehays  have  come  to 
Florence,  knowing  nothing  of  Leslie's  presence 
there;  and  they  happen  to  visit  the  villa  in  order 
to  see  a  fresco  which  it  contains.  If,  now,  we  had 
been  told  that  Janet's  engagement  by  the  Stone- 
hays  had  resulted  from  her  visit  to  Mr.  Cheal,  and 
that  the  Stonehays  had  come  to  Florence  knowing 
Leslie  to  be  there,  and  eager  to  find  her,  several 
links  would  have  been  struck  off  the  chain  of  coin- 
cidence; or,  to  put  it  more  exactly,  a  fairly  co- 
herent sequence  of  events  would  have  been  substi- 
tuted for  a  series  of  incoherent  chances.  The  same 
result  might  no  doubt  have  been  achieved  in  many 
other  and  neater  ways.  I  merely  indicate,  by  way 
of  illustration,  a  quite  obvious  method  of  reducing 
the  element  of  coincidence  in  the  case. 

The  coincidence  in  The  Second  Mrs.  Tanqueray, 
by  which  Ellean  meets  and  falls  in  love  with  one 
of  Paula's  ex-lovers,  has  been  very  severely  criti- 
cized. It  is  certainly  not  one  of  the  strong  points 
of  the  play;  but,  unlike  the  series  of  chances  we 
have  just  been  examining,  it  places  no  excessive 
strain  on  our  credulity.  Such  coincidences  do  occur 
in  real  life;  we  have  all  of  us  seen  or  heard  of 
them;  the  worst  we  can  say  of  this  one  is  that 
it  is  neither  positively  good  nor  positively  bad  — 
a  piece  of  indifferent  craftsmanship.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  we  turn  to  Letty,  the  chance  which,  in  the 
third  act,  leads  Letchmere's  party  and  Mandeville's 


CHANCE  AND  COINCIDENCE      293 

party  to  choose  the  same  restaurant,  seems  to  me 
entirely  justified.  It  is  not  really  a  coincidence 
at  all,  but  one  of  those  everyday  happenings  which 
are  not  only  admissible  in  drama,  but  positively 
desirable,  as  part  of  the  ordinary  surface-texture 
of  life.  Entirely  to  eliminate  chance  from  our 
representation  of  life  would  be  a  very  unreason- 
able austerity.  Strictly  speaking,  indeed,  it  is  im- 
possible; for  even  when  we  have  worked  out  an 
unbroken  chain  of  rational  and  commensurate 
causes  and  effects,  it  remains  a  chance,  and  an 
unlikely  chance,  that  chance  should  not  have  inter- 
fered with  it. 

All  the  plays  touched  upon  in  the  last  four  para- 
graphs are  in  intention  realistic.  They  aim,  that 
is  to  say,  at  a  literal  and  sober  representation  of 
life.  In  the  other  class  of  plays,  which  seek  their 
effect,  not  in  plodding  probability,  but  in  delightful 
improbability,  the  long  arm  of  coincidence  has  its 
legitimate  functions.  Yet  even  here  it  is  not  quite 
unfettered.  One  of  the  most  agreeable  coincidences 
in  fiction,  I  take  it,  is  the  simultaneous  arrival  in 
Bagdad,  from  different  quarters  of  the  globe,  of 
three  one-eyed  calenders,  all  blind  of  the  right 
eye,  and  all,  in  reality,  the  sons  of  kings.  But  it 
is  to  be  noted  that  this  coincidence  is  not  a  crucial 
occurrence  in  a  story,  but  only  a  part  of  the  story- 
teller's framework  or  mechanism  —  a  device  for 
introducing  fresh  series  of  adventures.  This  illus- 
trates the  Sarceyan  principle  above  referred  to, 
which  Professor  Brander  Matthews  has  re-stated 


294  PLAY-MAKING 

in  what  seems  to  me  an  entirely  acceptable  form  — 
namely,  that  improbabilities  which  may  be  admitted 
on  the  outskirts  of  an  action,  must  be  rigidly  ex- 
cluded when  the  issue  is  joined  and  we  are  in  the 
thick  of  things.  Coincidences,  in  fact,  become  the 
more  improbable  in  the  direct  ratio  of  their  im- 
portance. We  have  all,  in  our  own  experience, 
met  with  amazing  coincidences;  but  how  few  of 
us  have  ever  gained  or  lost,  been  made  happy  or  un- 
happy, by  a  coincidence,  as  distinct  from  a  chance ! 
It  is  not  precisely  probable  that  three  brothers,  who 
have  separated  in  early  life,  and  have  not  heard 
of  one  another  for  twenty  years,  should  find  them- 
selves seated  side  by  side  at  an  Italian  table-d'hote; 
yet  such  coincidences  have  occurred,  and  are  credi- 
ble enough  so  long  as  nothing  particular  comes 
of  them.  But  if  a  dramatist  were  to  make  these 
three  brothers  meet  in  Messina  on  the  eve  of  the 
earthquake,  in  order  that  they  might  all  be  killed, 
and  thus  enable  his  hero  (their  cousin)  to  succeed 
to  a  peerage  and  marry  the  heroine,  we  should  say 
that  his  use  of  coincidence  was  not  strictly  artistic. 
A  coincidence,  in  short,  which  coincides  with  a 
crisis  is  thereby  raised  to  the  nth  power,  and  is 
wholly  inacceptable  in  serious  art.  Mr.  Bernard 
Shaw  has  based  the  action  of  You  Never  Can  Tell 
on  the  amazing  coincidence  that  Mrs.  Clandon  and 
her  children,  coming  to  England  after  eighteen 
years'  absence,  should  by  pure  chance  run  straight 
into  the  arms,  or  rather  into  the  teeth,  of  the  hus- 
band and  father  whom  the  mother,  at  any  rate,  only 


CHANCE  AND  COINCIDENCE      295 

wishes  to  avoid.  This  is  no  bad  starting-point  for 
an  extravaganza;  but  even  Mr.  Shaw,  though  a 
despiser  of  niceties  of  craftsmanship,  introduces 
no  coincidences  into  serious  plays  such  as  Candida 
or  The  Doctor's  Dilemma. 


XVI 

LOGIC 

THE  term  logic  is  often  very  vaguely  used 
in  relation  to  drama.  French  writers  espe- 
cially, who  regard  logic  as  one  of  the  peculiar 
faculties  of  their  national  genius,  are  apt  to  insist 
upon  it  in  and  out  of  season.  But,  as  we  have 
already  seen,  logic  is  a  gift  which  may  easily  be 
misapplied.  It  too  often  leads  such  writers  as 
M.  Brieux  and  M.  Hervieu  to  sacrifice  the  undulant 
and  diverse  rhythms  of  life  to  a  stiff  and  sym- 
metrical formalism.  The  conception  of  a  play 
as  the  exhaustive  demonstration  of  a  thesis  has 
never  taken  a  strong  hold  on  the  Anglo-Saxon 
mind ;  and,  though  some  of  M.  Brieux's  plays  are 
much  more  than  mere  dramatic  arguments,  we  need 
not,  in  the  main,  envy  the  French  their  logician- 
dramatists. 

But,  though  the  presence  of  logic  should  never 
be  forced  upon  the  spectator's  attention,  still  less 
should  he  be  disturbed  and  baffled  by  its  con- 
spicuous absence.  If  the  playwright  announces 
a  theme  at  all:  if  he  lets  it  be  seen  that  some 
general  idea  underlies  his  work:  he  is  bound 
to  present  and  develop  that  idea  in  a  logical  fashion, 
not  to  shift  his  ground,  whether  inadvertently  or 

296 


LOGIC  297 

insidiously,  and  not  to  wander  off  into  irrelevant 
side-issues.  He  must  face  his  problem  squarely. 
If  he  sets  forth  to  prove  anything  at  all,  he  must 
prove  that  thing  and  not  some  totally  different 
thing.  He  must  beware  of  the  red-herring  across 
the  trail. 

For  a  clear  example  of  defective  logic,  I  turn  to 
a  French  play  —  Sardou's  Spiritisme.  Both  from 
internal  and  from  external  evidence,  it  is  certain 
that  M.  Sardou  was  a  believer  in  spiritualism  — 
in  the  existence  of  disembodied  intelligences,  and 
their  power  of  communicating  with  the  living.  Yet 
he  had  not  the  courage  to  assign  to  them  an  essen- 
tial part  in  his  drama.  The  spirits  hover  round  the 
outskirts  of  the  action,  but  do  not  really  or  effect- 
ually intervene  in  it.  The  hero's  belief  in  them, 
indeed,  helps  to  bring  about  the  conclusion;  but 
the  apparition  which  so  potently  works  upon  him 
is  an  admitted  imposture,  a  pious  fraud.  Earlier 
in  the  play,  two  or  three  trivial  and  unnecessary 
miracles  are  introduced  —  just  enough  to  hint  at 
the  author's  faith  without  decisively  affirming  it. 
For  instance :  towards  the  close  of  Act  I  Madame 
d'Aubenas  has  gone  off,  nominally  to  take  the 
night  train  for  Poitiers,  in  reality  to  pay  a  visit 
to  her  lover,  M.  de  Stoudza.  When  she  has  gone, 
her  husband  and  his  guests  arrange  a  seance  and 
evoke  a  spirit.  No  sooner  have  preliminaries 
been  settled  than  the  spirit  spells  out  the  word 
"  O — u — v — r — e — z."  They  open  the  window, 
and  behold!  the  sky  is  red  with  a  glare  which 


298  PLAY-MAKING 

proves  to  proceed  from  the  burning  of  the  train 
in  which  Madame  d'Aubenas  is  supposed  to  have 
started.  The  incident  is  effective  enough,  and  a 
little  creepy ;  but  its  effect  is  quite  incommensurate 
with  the  strain  upon  our  powers  of  belief.  The 
thing  is  supposed  to  be  a  miracle,  of  that  there 
can  be  no  doubt;  but  it  has  not  the  smallest 
influence  on  the  course  of  the  play,  except  to  bring 
on  the  hurry-scurry  and  alarm  a  few  minutes 
earlier  than  might  otherwise  have  been  the  case. 
Now,  if  the  spirit,  instead  of  merely  announcing 
the  accident,  had  informed  M.  d'Aubenas  that 
his  wife  was  not  in  it  —  if,  for  example,  it  had 
rapped  out  "  Gilberte  chez  Stoudza  "  —  it  would 
have  been  an  honest  ghost  (though  indiscreet), 
and  we  should  not  have  felt  that  our  credulity  had 
been  taxed  to  no  purpose.  As  it  is,  the  logical 
deduction  from  M.  Sardou's  fable  is  that,  though 
spirit  communications  are  genuine  enough,  they 
are  never  of  the  slightest  use ;  but  we  can  scarcely 
suppose  that  that  was  what  he  intended  to  convey. 
It  may  be  said,  and  perhaps  with  truth,  that 
what  Sardou  lacked  in  this  instance  was  not  logic, 
but  courage :  he  felt  that  an  audience  would  accept 
episodic  miracles,  but  would  reject  supernatural 
interference  at  a  determining  crisis  in  the  play. 
In  that  case  he  would  have  done  better  to  let  the 
theme  alone:  for  the  manifest  failure  of  logic 
leaves  the  play  neither  good  drama  nor  good  argu- 
ment. This  is  a  totally  different  matter  from 
Ibsen's  treatment  of  the  supernatural  in  such  plays 


LOGIC  299 

as  The  Lady  from  the  Sea,  The  Master  Builder 
and  Little  Eyolf.  Ibsen,  like  Hawthorne,  suggests 
without  affirming  the  action  of  occult  powers.  He 
shows  us  nothing  that  is  not  capable  of  a  perfectly 
natural  explanation;  but  he  leaves  us  to  imagine, 
if  we  are  so  disposed,  that  there  may  be  influences 
at  work  that  are  not  yet  formally  recognized  in 
physics  and  psychology.  In  this  there  is  nothing 
illogical.  The  poet  is  merely  appealing  to  a  mood, 
familiar  to  all  of  us,  in  which  we  wonder  whether 
there  may  not  be  more  things  in  heaven  and  earth 
than  are  crystallized  in  our  scientific  formulas. 

It  is  a  grave  defect  of  logic  to  state,  or  hint  at, 
a  problem,  and  then  illustrate  it  in  such  terms  of 
character  that  it  is  solved  in  advance.  In  The 
Liars,  by  Mr.  Henry  Arthur  Jones,  there  is  an 
evident  suggestion  of  the  problem  whether  a  man 
is  ever  justified  in  rescuing  a  woman,  by  means 
of  the  Divorce  Court,  from  marital  bondage  which 
her  soul  abhors.  The  sententious  Sir  Christopher 
Deering  argues  the  matter  at  great  length:  but 
all  the  time  we  are  hungering  for  him  to  say  the 
one  thing  demanded  by  the  logic  of  the  situation: 
to  wit :  "  Whatever  the  abstract  rights  and  wrongs 
of  the  case,  this  man  would  be  an  imbecile  to  elope 
with  this  woman,  who  is  an  empty-headed,  empty- 
hearted  creature,  incapable  either  of  the  passion  or 
of  the  loathing  which  alone  could  lend  any  sem- 
blance of  reason  to  a  breach  of  social  law."  Simi- 
larly, in  The  Profligate,  Sir  Arthur  Pinero  no 
doubt  intended  us  to  reflect  upon  the  question 


300  PLAY-MAKING 

whether,  in  entering  upon  marriage,  a  woman  has 
a  right  to  assume  in  her  husband  the  same  purity  of 
antecedent  conduct  which  he  demands  of  her.  That 
is  an  arguable  question,  and  it  has  been  argued 
often  enough;  but  in  this  play  it  does  not  really 
arise,  for  the  husband  presented  to  us  is  no  ordi- 
nary loose-liver,  but  (it  would  seem  —  for  the  case 
is  not  clearly  stated)  a  particularly  base  and  heart- 
less seducer,  whom  it  is  evidently  a  misfortune  for 
any  woman  to  have  married.  The  authors  of  these 
two  plays  have  committed  an  identical  error  of 
logic:  namely,  that  of  suggesting  a  broad  issue, 
and  then  stating  such  a  set  of  circumstances  that 
the  issue  does  not  really  arise.  In  other  words,  they 
have  from  the  outset  begged  the  question.  The 
plays,  it  may  be  said,  were  both  successful  in  their 
day.  Yes;  but  had  they  been  logical  their  day 
might  have  lasted  a  century.  A  somewhat  similar 
defect  of  logic  constitutes  a  faj;al  blemish  in. The 
Ideal  Husband,  by  Oscar  Wilde.  Intentionally  or 
otherwise,  the  question  suggested  is  whether  a 
single  flaw  of  conduct  (the  betrayal  to  financiers 
of  a  state  secret)  ought  to  blast  a  political  career. 
Here,  again,  is  an  arguable  point,  on  the  assump- 
tion that  the  statesman  is  penitent  and  determined 
never  to  repeat  his  misdeed;  but  when  we  find 
that  this  particular  statesman  is  prepared  to  go 
on  betraying  his  country  indefinitely,  in  order  to 
save  his  own  skin,  the  question  falls  to  the  ground 
—  the  answer  is  too  obvious. 

It  happened   some  years   ago  that   two  plays 


LOGIC  301 

satirizing-  "  yellow  journalism "  were  produced 
almost  simultaneously  in  London  —  The  Earth  by 
Mr.  James  B.  Pagan,  and  What  the  Public  Wants 
by  Mr.  Arnold  Bennett.  In  point  of  intellectual 
grasp,  or  power  of  characterization,  there  could  be 
no  comparison  between  the  two  writers ;  yet  I  hold 
that,  from  the  point  of  view  of  dramatic  compo- 
sition, The  Earth  was  the  better  play  of  the  two, 
simply  because  it  dealt  logically  with  the  theme  an- 
nounced, instead  of  wandering  away  into  all  sorts 
of  irrelevances.  Mr.  Bennett,  to  begin  with,  could 
not  resist  making  his  Napoleon  of  the  Press  a 
native  of  the  "  Five  Towns,"  and  exhibiting  him 
at  large  in  provincial  middle-class  surroundings. 
All  this  is  sheer  irrelevance ;  for  the  type  of  jour- 
nalism in  question  is  not  characteristically  an  out- 
come of  any  phase  of  provincial  life.  Mr.  Bennett 
may  allege  that  Sir  Charles  Worgan  had  to  be 
born,  somewhere,  ^and  might  as  well  be  born  in 
Bursley  as  anywhere  else.  I  reply  that,  for  the 
purposes  of  the  play,  he  need  not  have  been  born 
anywhere.  His  birthplace  and  the  surroundings 
of  his  boyhood  have  nothing  to«.do  with  what  may 
be  called  his  journalistic  psychology,  which  is,  or 
ought  to  be,  the  theme  of  the  play.  Then,  again, 
Mr.  Bennett  shows  him  dabbling  in  theatrical  man- 
agement and  falling  in  love  —  irrelevances  both. 
As  a  manager,  no  doubt,  he  insists  on  doing  "  what 
the  public  wants  "  (it  is  nothing  worse  than  a  re- 
vival of  The  Merchant  of  Venice)  and  thus  offers 
another  illustration  of  the  results  of  obeying  that 


302  PLAY-MAKING 

principle.  But  all  this  is  beside  the  real  issue.  The 
true  gravamen  of  the  charge  against  a  Napoleon 
of  the  Press  is  not  that  he  gives  the  public  what 
it  wants,  but  that  he  can  make  the  public  want 
what  he  wants,  think  what  he  thinks,  believe  what 
he  wants  them  to  believe,  and  do  what  he  wants 
them  to  do.  By  dint  of  assertion,  innuendo,  and 
iteration  in  a  hundred  papers,  he  can  create  an 
apparent  public  opinion,  or  public  emotion,  which 
may  be  directed  towards  the  most  dangerous  ends. 
This  point  Mr.  Bennett  entirely  missed.  What  he 
gave  us  was  in  reality  a  comedy  of  middle-class 
life  with  a  number  of  incidental  allusions  to  "  yel- 
low "  journalism  and  kindred  topics.  Mr.  Fagan, 
working  in  broader  outlines,  and,  it  must  be  owned, 
in  cruder  colours,  never  strayed  from  the  logical 
line  of  development,  and  took  us  much  nearer  the 
heart  of  his  subject. 

A  somewhat  different,  and  very  common,  fault 
of  logic  was  exemplified  in  Mr.  Clyde  Fitch's  last 
play,  The  City.  His  theme,  as  announced  in  his 
title  and  indicated  in  his  exposition,  was  the  influ- 
ence of  New  York  upon  a  family  which  migrates 
thither  from  a  provincial  town.  But  the  action  is 
not  really  shaped  by  the  influence  of  "  the  city." 
It  might  have  taken  practically  the  same  course  if 
the  family  had  remained  at  home.  The  author  had 
failed  to  establish  a  logical  connection  between  his 
theme  and  the  incidents  supposed  to  illustrate  it.1 

*  I  am  here  writing  from  memory,  having  been  unable  to 
obtain  a  copy  of  The  City;  but  my  memory  is  pretty  clear. 


LOGIC  303 

Fantastic  plays,  which  assume  an  order  of  things 
more  or  less  exempt  from  the  limitations  of  phys- 
ical reality,  ought,  nevertheless,  to  be  logically 
faithful  to  their  own  assumptions.  Some  fantasies, 
indeed,  which  sinned  against  this  principle,  have 
had  no  small  success.  In  Pygmalion  and  Galatea, 
for  example,  there  is  a  conspicuous  lack  of  logic. 
The  following  passage  from  a  criticism  of  thirty 
years  ago  puts  my  point  so  clearly  that  I  am  tempted 
to  copy  it :  — 

As  we  have  no  scientific  record  of  a  statue  coming 
to  life,  the  probable  moral  and  intellectual  condition 
of  a  being  so  created  is  left  to  the  widest  conjecture. 
The  playwright  may  assume  for  it  any  stage  of  de- 
velopment he  pleases,  and  his  audience  will  readily 
grant  his  assumption.  But  if  his  work  is  to  have  any 
claim  to  artistic  value,  he  must  not  assume  all  sorts 
of  different  stages  of  development  at  every  second 
word  his  creation  utters.  He  must  not  make  her  a 
child  in  one  speech,  a  woman  of  the  world  in  the 
next,  and  an  idiot  in  the  next  again.  Of  course,  it 
would  be  an  extremely  difficult  task  clearly  to  define 
in  all  its  bearings  and  details  the  particular  intellec- 
tual condition  assumed  at  the  outset,  and  then  gradu- 
ally to  indicate  the  natural  growth  of  a  fuller  con- 
sciousness. Difficult  it  would  be,  but  by  no  means 
impossible ;  nay,  it  would  be  this  very  problem  which 
would  tempt  the  true  dramatist  to  adopt  such  a 
theme.  Mr.  Gilbert  has  not  essayed  the  task.  He 
regulates  Galatea's  state  of  consciousness  by  the  fluc- 
tuating exigencies  of  dialogue  whose  humour  is  lev- 
elled straight  at  the  heads  of  the  old  Haymarket  pit. 


304  PLAY-MAKING 

To  indicate  the  nature  of  the  inconsistencies 
which  abound  in  every  scene,  I  may  say  that,  in 
the  first  act,  Galatea  does  not  know  that  she  is  a 
woman,  but  understands  the  word  "  beauty," 
knows  (though  Pygmalion  is  the  only  living  crea- 
ture she  has  ever  seen)  the  meaning  of  agreement 
and  difference  of  taste,  and  is  alive  to  the  distinction 
between  an  original  and  a  copy.  In  the  second  act 
she  has  got  the  length  of  knowing  the  enormity  of 
taking  life,  and  appreciating  the  fine  distinction 
between  taking  it  of  one's  own  motive,  and  taking 
it  for  money.  Yet  the  next  moment,  when  Leu- 
cippe  enters  with  a  fawn  he  has  killed,  it  appears 
that  she  does  not  realize  the  difference  between 
man  and  the  brute  creation.  Thus  we  are  for  ever 
shifting  from  one  plane  of  convention  to  another. 
There  is  no  fixed  starting-point  for  our  imagina- 
tion, no  logical  development  of  a  clearly-stated 
initial  condition.  The  play,  it  is  true,  enjoyed  some 
five-and-twenty  years  of  life ;  but  it  certainly  can- 
not claim  an  enduring  place  either  in  literature  or 
on  the  stage.  It  is  still  open  to  the  philosophic 
dramatist  to  write  a  logical  Pygmalion  and  Galatea. 


XVII 

KEEPING  A    SECRET 

IT  has  been  often  and  authoritatively  laid  down 
that  a  dramatist  must  on  no  account  keep  a 
secret  from  his  audience.  Like  most  authoritative 
maxims,  this  one  seems  to  require  a  good  deal  of 
qualification.  Let  us  look  into  the  matter  a  little 
more  closely. 

So  far  as  I  can  see,  the  strongest  reason  against 
keeping  a  secret  is  that,  try  as  you  may,  you  cannot 
do  it.  This  point  has  already  been  discussed  in 
Chapter  IX,  where  we  saw  that  from  only  one 
audience  can  a  secret  be  really  hidden,  a  consider- 
able percentage  of  any  subsequent  audience  being 
certain  to  know  all  about  it  in  advance.  The  more 
striking  and  successful  is  the  first-night  effect  of 
surprise,  the  more  certainly  and  rapidly  will  the 
report  of  it  circulate  through  all  strata  of  the  the- 
atrical public.  But  for  this  fact,  one  could  quite 
well  conceive  a  fascinating  melodrama  constructed, 
like  a  detective  story,  with  a  view  to  keeping  the 
audience  in  the  dark  as  long  as  possible.  A  pistol 
shot  might  ring  out  just  before  the  rise  of  the 
curtain :  a  man  (or  woman)  might  be  discovered  in 
an  otherwise  empty  room,  weltering  in  his  (or  her) 
gore:  and  the  remainder  of  the  play  might  con- 

305 


3o6  PLAY-MAKING 

sist  in  the  tracking  down  of  the  murderer,  who 
would,  of  course,  prove  to  be  the  very  last  person 
to  be  suspected.  Such  a  play  might  make  a  great 
first-night  success ;  but  the  more  the  author  relied 
upon  the  mystery  for  his  effect,  the  more  fatally 
would  that  effect  be  discounted  at  each  successive 
repetition. 

One  author  of  distinction,  M.  Hervieu,  has  actu- 
ally made  the  experiment  of  presenting  an  enigma 
—  he  calls  the  play  L'Enigme  —  and  reserving  the 
solution  to  the  very  end.  We  know  from  the 
outset  that  one  of  two  sisters-in-law  is  unfaithful 
to  her  husband,  and  the  question  is  —  which  ?  The 
whole  ingenuity  of  the  author  is  centred  on  keeping 
the  secret,  and  the  spectator  who  does  not  know  it 
in  advance  is  all  the  time  in  the  attitude  of  a 
detective  questing  for  clues.  He  is  challenged  to 
guess  which  of  the  ladies  is  the  frail  one;  and  he 
is  far  too  intent  on  this  game  to  think  or  care  about 
the  emotional  process  of  the  play.  I  myself  (I 
remember)  guessed  right,  mainly  because  the  name 
Giselle  seemed  to  me  more  suggestive  of  flightiness 
than  the  staid  and  sober  Leonore,  wherefore  I  sus- 
pected that  M.  Hervieu,  in  order  to  throw  dust  in 
our  eyes,  had  given  it  to  the  virtuous  lady.  But 
whether -we  guess  right  or  wrong,  this  clue-hunting 
is  an  intellectual  sport,  not  an  artistic  enjoyment. 
If  there  is  any  aesthetic  quality  in  the  play,  it  can 
only  come  home  to  us  when  we  know  the  secret. 
And  the  same  dilemma  will  present  itself  to  any 
playwright  who  seeks  to  imitate  M.  Hervieu. 


KEEPING   A    SECRET  307 

The  actual  keeping  of  a  secret,  then  —  the  appeal 
to  the  primary  curiosity  of  actual  ignorance  —  may 
be  ruled  out  as  practically  impossible,  and,  when 
possible,  unworthy  of  serious  art.  But  there  is 
also,  as  we  have  seen,  the  secondary  curiosity  of  the 
audience  which,  though  more  or  less  cognizant  of 
the  essential  facts,  instinctively  assumes  ignorance, 
and  judges  the  development  of  a  play  from  that 
point  of  view.  We  all  realize  that  a  dramatist  has 
no  right  to  trust  to  our  previous  knowledge,  ac- 
quired from  outside  sources.  We  know  that  a 
play,  like  every  other  work  of  art,  ought  to  be  self- 
sufficient,  and  even  if,  at  any  given  moment,  we 
have,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  knowledge  which  supple- 
ments what  the  playwright  has  told  us,  we  feel  that 
he  ought  not  to  have  taken  for  granted  our  pos- 
session of  any  such  external  and  fortuitous  in- 
formation. To  put  it  briefly,  the  dramatist  must 
formally  assume  ignorance  in  his  audience,  though 
he  must  not  practically  rely  upon  it.  Therefore  it 
becomes  a  point  of  real  importance  to  determine 
how  long  a  secret  may  be  kept  from  an  audience, 
assumed  to  have  no  outside  knowledge,  and  at 
what  point  it  ought  to  be  revealed. 

When  Lady  Windermere's  Fan  was  first  pro- 
duced, no  hint  was  given  in  the  first  act  of  the 
fact  that  Mrs.  Erlynne  was  Lady  Windermere's 
mother;  so  that  Lord  Windermere's  insistence  on 
inviting  her  to  his  wife's  birthday  reception  re- 
mained wholly  unexplained.  But  after  a  few  nights 
the  author  made  Lord  Windermere  exclaim,  just 


308  PLAY-MAKING 

as  the  curtain  fell,  "  My  God !  What  shall  I  do  ? 
I  dare  not  tell  her  who  this  woman  really  is.  The 
shame  would  kill  her."  It  was,  of  course,  said 
that  this  change  had  been  made  in  deference  to 
newspaper  criticism;  and  Oscar  Wilde,  in  a  char- 
acteristic letter  to  the  St.  James's  Gazette,  promptly 
repelled  this  calumny.  At  a  first-night  supper- 
party,  he  said,  — 

"  All  of  my  friends  without  exception  were  of  the 
opinion  that  the  psychological  interest  of  the  second 
act  would  be  greatly  increased  by  the  disclosure  of 
the  actual  relationship  existing  between  Lady  Win- 
dermere  and  Mrs.  Erlynne  —  an  opinion,  I  may  add, 
that  had  previously  been  strongly  held  and  urged  by 
Mr.  Alexander.  ...  I  determined,  consequently,  to 
make  a  change  in  the  precise  moment  of  revelation." 

It  is  impossible  to  say  whether  Wilde  seriously 
believed  that  "  psychology  "  entered  into  the  mat- 
ter at  all,  or  whether  he  was  laughing  in  his 
sleeve  in  putting  forward  this  solemn  plea.  The 
truth  is,  I  think,  that  this  example  cannot  be  cited 
either  for  or  against  the  keeping  of  a  secret,  the 
essential  fact  being  that  the  secret  was  such  a  bad 
and  inacceptable  one  —  inacceptable,  I  mean,  as  an 
explanation  of  Lord  Windermere's  conduct  —  that 
it  was  probably  wise  to  make  a  clean  breast  of  it 
as  soon  as  possible,  and  get  it  over.  It  may  be 
said  with  perfect  confidence  that  it  is  useless  to 
keep  a  secret  which,  when  revealed,  is  certain  to 
disappoint  the  audience,  and  to  make  it  feel  that 


KEEPING   A    SECRET  309 

it  has  been  trifled  with.  That  is  an  elementary 
dictate  of  prudence.  But  if  the  reason  for  Lord 
Windermere's  conduct  had  been  adequate,  ingen- 
ious, such  as  to  give  us,  when  revealed,  a  little  shock 
of  pleasant  surprise,  the  author  need  certainly  have 
been  in  no  hurry  to  disclose  it.  It  is  not  improbable 
(though  my  memory  is  not  clear  on  the  point)  that 
part  of  the  strong  interest  we  undoubtedly  felt  on 
the  first  night  arose  from  the  hope  that  Lord  Win- 
dermere's seemingly  unaccountable  conduct  might 
be  satisfactorily  accounted  for.  As  this  hope  was 
futile,  there  was  no  reason,  at  subsequent  per- 
formances, to  keep  up  the  pretence  of  preserving 
a  secret  which  was  probably  known,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  to  most  of  the  audience,  and  which  was 
worthless  when  revealed. 

In  the  second  act  of  The  Devil's  Disciple,  by  Mr. 
Bernard  Shaw,  we  have  an  instance  of  wholly  in- 
artistic secrecy,  which  would  certainly  be  con- 
demned in  the  work  of  any  author  who  was  not 
accepted  in  advance  as  a  law  unto  himself.  Richard 
Dudgeon  has  been  arrested  by  the  British  soldiers, 
who  mistake  him  for  the  Reverend  Anthony  Ander- 
son. When  Anderson  comes  home,  it  takes  a  very 
long  time  for  his  silly  wife,  Judith,  to  acquaint  him 
with  a  situation  that  might  have  been  explained  in 
three  words;  and  when,  at  last,  he  does  under- 
stand it,  he  calls  for  a  horse  and  his  boots,  and 
rushes  off  in  mad  haste,  as  though  his  one  desire 
were  to  escape  from  the  British  and  leave  Dudgeon 
to  his  fate.  In  reality  his  purpose  is  to  bring  up 


3io  PLAY-MAKING 

a  body  of  Continental  troops  to  the  rescue  of 
Dudgeon;  and  this  also  he  might  (and  certainly 
would)  have  conveyed  in  three  words.  But  Mr. 
Shaw  was  so  bent  on  letting  Judith  continue  to 
conduct  herself  idiotically,  that  he  made  her  sensi- 
ble husband  act  no  less  idiotically,  in  order  to  throw 
dust  in  her  eyes,  and  (incidentally)  in  the  eyes  of 
the  audience.  In  the  work  of  any  other  man,  we 
should  call  this  not  only  an  injudicious,  but  a 
purposeless  and  foolish,  keeping  of  a  secret.  Mr. 
Shaw  may  say  that  in  order  to  develop  the  char- 
acter of  Judith  as  he  had  conceived  it,  he  was 
forced  to  make  her  misunderstand  her  husband's 
motives.  A  development  of  character  obtained  by 
such  artificial  means  cannot  be  of  much  worth; 
but  even  granting  this  plea,  one  cannot  but  point 
out  that  it  would  have  been  easy  to  keep  Judith  in 
the  dark  as  to  Anderson's  purpose,  without  keeping 
the  audience  also  in  the  dark,  and  making  him  be- 
have like  a  fool.  All  that  was  required  was  to  get 
Judith  off  the  stage  for  a  few  moments,  just  before 
the  true  state  of  matters  burst  upon  Anthony.  It 
would  then  have  been  perfectly  natural  and  probable 
that,  not  foreseeing  her  misunderstanding,  he 
should  hurry  off  without  waiting  to  explain  matters 
to  her.  But  that  he  should  deliberately  leave  her 
in  her  delusion,  and  even  use  phrases  carefully  cal- 
culated to  deceive  both  her  and  the  audience,1  would 

1  For  instance :  "  If  you  can  get  a  word  with  him  by  pre- 
tending that  you  are  his  wife,  tell  him  to  hold  his  tongue 
until  morning;  that  will  give  me  all  the  start  I  need." 


KEEPING   A   SECRET  311 

be,  in  a  writer  who  professed  to  place  reason  above 
caprice,  a  rather  gross  fault  of  art. 

Mr.  Henry  Arthur  Jones's  light  comedy,  White- 
washing Julia,  proves  that  it  is  possible,  without 
incurring  disaster,  to  keep  a  secret  throughout  a 
play,  and  never  reveal  it  at  all.  More  accurately, 
what  Mr.  Jones  does  is  to  pretend  that  there  is  some 
explanation  of  Mrs.  Julia  Wren's  relations  with 
the  Duke  of  Savona,  other  than  the  simple  expla- 
nation that  she  was  his  mistress,  and  to  keep  us 
waiting  for  this  "  whitewashing  "  disclosure,  when 
in  fact  he  has  nothing  of  the  sort  up  his  sleeve, 
and  the  plain  truth  is  precisely  what  the  gossips  of 
Shanctonbury  surmise.  Julia  does  not  even  explain 
or  justify  her  conduct  from  her  own  point  of  view. 
She  gives  out  that  "  an  explanation  will  be  forth- 
coming at  the  right  moment " ;  but  the  right  mo- 
ment never  arrives.  All  we  are  told  is  that  she, 
Julia,  considers  that  there  was  never  anything  de- 
grading in  her  conduct;  and  this  we  are  asked 
to  accept  as  sufficient.  It  was  a  daring  policy  to 
dangle  before  our  eyes  an  explanation,  which 
always  receded  as  we  advanced  towards  it,  and 
proved  in  the  end  to  be  wholly  unexplanatory.  The 
success  of  the  play,  however,  was  sufficient  to  show 
that,  in  light  comedy,  at  any  rate,  a  secret  may  with 
impunity  be  kept,  even  to  the  point  of  tantalization.1 

1  In  The  Idyll,  by  Herr  Egge,  of  which  some  account  is 
given  in  Chapter  X,  the  author  certainly  does  right  in  not 
allowing  the  audience  for  a  moment  to  share  the  hero's 
doubts  as  to  the  heroine's  past.  It  would  have  been  very 


312  PLAY-MAKING 

Let  us  now  look  at  a  couple  of  cases  in  which 
the  keeping  of  a  secret  seems  pretty  clearly  wrong, 
inasmuch  as  it  diminishes  tension,  and  deprives  the 
audience  of  that  superior  knowledge  in  which  lies 
the  irony  of  drama.  In  a  play  named  Her  Advo- 
cate, by  Mr.  Walter  Frith  (founded  on  one  of 
Grenville  Murray's  French  Pictures  in  English 
Chalk),  a  K.C.  has  fallen  madly  in  love  with  a 
woman  whose  defence  he  has  undertaken.  He  be- 
lieves passionately  in  her  innocence,  and,  never 
doubting  that  she  loves  him  in  return,  he  is  deter- 
mined to  secure  for  her  a  triumphant  acquittal. 
Just  at  the  crucial  moment,  however,  he  learns  that 
she  loves  another  man;  and,  overwhelmed  by  this 
disillusion,  he  has  still  to  face  the  ordeal  and  plead 
her  cause.  The  conjuncture  would  be  still  more 
dramatic  if  the  revelation  of  this  love  were  to 
put  a  different  complexion  on  the  murder,  and,  by 
introducing  a  new  motive,  shake  the  advocate's 
faith  in  his  client's  innocence.  But  that  is  another 
matter;  the  question  here  to  be  considered  is 
whether  the  author  did  right  in  reserving  the  reve- 
lation to  the  last  possible  moment.  In  my  opinion 
he  would  have  done  better  to  have  given  us  an 
earlier  inkling  of  the  true  state  of  affairs.  To 
keep  the  secret,  in  this  case,  was  to  place  the  audi- 
ence as  well  as  the  advocate  on  a  false  trail,  and 
to  deprive  it  of  the  sense  of  superiority  it  would 

easy  for  him  to  have  kept  the  secret ;  but  he  takes  the  earli- 
est opportunity  of  assuring  us  that  her  relations  with  Ringve 
were  quite  innocent 


KEEPING   A    SECRET  313 

have  felt  in  seeing  him  marching  confidently 
towards  a  happiness  which  it  knew  to  be  illusory. 

The  second  case  is  that  of  La  Douloureuse,  by 
M.  Maurice  Donnay.  Through  two  acts  out  of  the 
four  an  important  secret  is  so  carefully  kept  that 
there  seems  to  be  no  obstacle  between  the  lovers 
with  whom  (from  the  author's  point  of  view)  we 
are  supposed  to  sympathize.  The  first  act  is  de- 
voted to  an  elaborate  painting  of  a  somewhat  re- 
volting phase  of  parvenu  society  in  Paris.  Towards 
the  end  of  the  act  we  learn  that  the  sculptor, 
Philippe  Lauberthie,  is  the  lover  of  Helene  Ardan, 
a  married  woman;  and  at  the  very  end  her  hus- 
band, Ardan,  commits  suicide.  This  act,  therefore, 
is  devoted,  not,  as  the  orthodox  formula  goes,  to 
raising  an  obstacle  between  the  lovers,  but  rather 
to  destroying  one.  In  the  second  act  there  still 
seems  to  be  no  obstacle  of  any  sort.  Helene' s  year 
of  widowhood  is  nearly  over ;  she  and  Philippe  are 
presently  to  be  married ;  all  is  harmony,  adoration, 
and  security.  In  the  last  scene  of  the  act,  a  cloud 
no  bigger  than  a  man's  hand  appears  on  the  horizon. 
We  find  that  Gotte  des  Trembles,  Helene's  bosom 
friend,  is  also  in  love  with  Philippe,  and  is  deter- 
mined to  let  him  know  it.  But  Philippe  resists  her 
blandishments  with  melancholy  austerity,  and  when 
the  curtain  falls  on  the  second  act,  things  seem  to 
be  perfectly  safe  and  in  order.  Helene  a  widow, 
and  Philippe  austere  —  what  harm  can  Gotte  pos- 
sibly do  ? 

The  fact  is,  M.  Donnay  is  carefully  keeping  a 


314  PLAY-MAKING 

secret  from  us.  Philippe  is  not  Helene's  first  lover; 
her  son,  Georges,  is  not  the  child  of  her  late  hus- 
band ;  and  Gotte,  and  Gotte  alone,  knows  the  truth. 
Had  we  also  been  initiated  from  the  outset  (and 
nothing  would  have  been  easier  or  more  natural  — 
three  words  exchanged  between  Gotte  and  Helene 
would  have  done  it)  we  should  have  been  at  no  loss 
to  foresee  the  impending  drama,  and  the  sense  of 
irony  would  have  tripled  the  interest  of  the  inter- 
vening scenes.  The  effect  of  M.  Donnay's  third 
act  is  not  a  whit  more  forcible  because  it  comes 
upon  us  unprepared.  We  learn  at  the  beginning 
that  Philippe's  austerity  has  not  after  all  been  proof 
against  Gotte's  seductions ;  but  it  has  now  returned 
upon  him  embittered  by  remorse,  and  he  treats 
Gotte  with  sternness  approaching  to  contumely. 
She  takes  her  revenge  by  revealing  Helene's  secret ; 
he  tells  Helene  that  he  knows  it;  and  she,  putting 
two  and  two  together,  divines  how  it  has  come  to 
his  knowledge.  This  long  scene  of  mutual  re- 
proach and  remorseful  misery  is,  in  reality,  the 
whole  drama,  and  might  have  been  cited  in  Chap- 
ter XIV  as  a  fine  example  of  a  peripety.  Helene 
enters  Philippe's  studio  happy  and  serene,  she  leaves 
it  broken-hearted;  but  the  effect  of  the  scene  is 
not  a  whit  greater  because,  in  the  two  previous 
acts,  we  have  been  studiously  deprived  of  the 
information  that  would  have  led  us  vaguely  to 
anticipate  it. 

To  sum  up  this  question  of  secrecy :  the  current 
maxim,  "  Never  keep  a  secret  from  your  audience," 


KEEPING   A    SECRET  315 

would  appear  to  be  an  over-simplification  of  a 
somewhat  difficult  question  of  craftsmanship.  We 
may  agree  that  it  is  often  dangerous  and  some- 
times manifestly  foolish  to  keep  a  secret;  but,  on 
the  other  hand,  there  is  certainly  no  reason  why  the 
playwright  should  blurt  out  all  his  secrets  at  the 
first  possible  opportunity.  The  true  art  lies  in 
knowing  just  how  long  to  keep  silent,  and  just  the 
right  time  to  speak.  In  the  first  act  of  Letty,  Sir 
Arthur  Pinero  gains  a  memorable  effect  by  keeping 
a  secret,  not  very  long,  indeed,  but  long  enough 
and  carefully  enough  to  show  that  he  knew  very 
clearly  what  he  was  doing.  We  are  introduced  to 
Nevill  Letchmere's  bachelor  apartments.  Animated 
scenes  occur  between  Letchmere  and  his  brother-in- 
law,  Letchmere  and  his  sister,  Letchmere  and  Letty, 
Marion  and  Hilda  Gunning.  It  is  evident  that 
Letty  dreams  of  marriage  with  Letchmere;  and 
for  aught  that  we  see  or  hear,  there  is  no  just 
cause  or  impediment  to  the  contrary.  It  is  only, 
at  the  end  of  the  very  admirable  scene  between 
Letchmere  and  Mandeville  that  the  following  little 
passage  occurs :  — 

MANDEVILLE  :  ...  At  all  events  I  am  qualified  to 
tell  her  I  'm  fairly  gone  on  her  —  honourably  gone 
on  her  —  if  I  choose  to  do  it. 

LETCHMERE:    Qualified? 

MANDEVILLE:  Which  is  more  than  you  are,  Mr. 
Letchmere.  I  am  a  single  man;  you  ain't,  bear  in 
mind. 

LETCHMERE  (imperturbably)  :   Very  true. 


3i6  PLAY-MAKING 

This  one  little  touch  is  a  masterpiece  of  craftsman- 
ship. It  would  have  been  the  most  natural  thing 
in  the  world  for  either  the  sister  or  the  brother-in- 
law,  concerned  about  their  own  matrimonial  diffi- 
culties, to  let  fall  some  passing  allusion  to  Letch- 
mere's  separation  from  his  wife;  but  the  author 
carefully  avoided  this,  carefully  allowed  us  to  make 
our  first  acquaintance  with  Letty  in  ignorance  of 
the  irony  of  her  position,  and  then  allowed  the 
truth  to  slip  out  just  in  time  to  let  us  feel  the 
whole  force  of  that  irony  during  the  last  scene  of 
the  act  and  the  greater  part  of  the  second  act.  A 
finer  instance  of  the  delicate  grading  of  tension  it 
would  be  difficult  to  cite. 

One  thing  is  certain;  namely,  that  if  a  secret 
is  to  be  kept  at  all,  it  must  be  worth  the  keeping; 
if  a  riddle  is  propounded,  its  answer  must  be  pleas- 
ing and  ingenious,  or  the  audience  will  resent  hav- 
ing been  led  to  cudgel  its  brains  for  nothing.  This 
is  simply  a  part  of  the  larger  principle,  before  in- 
sisted on,  that  when  a  reasonable  expectation  is 
aroused,  it  can  be  baffled  only  at  the  author's  peril. 
If  the  crux  of  a  scene  or  of  a  whole  play  lie  in 
the  solution  of  some  material  difficulty  or  moral 
problem,  it  must  on  no  account  be  solved  by  a  mere 
trick  or  evasion.  The  dramatist  is  very  ill-advised 
who  sets  forth  with  pomp  and  circumstance  to  per- 
form some  intellectual  or  technical  feat,  and  then 
merely  skirts  round  it  or  runs  away  from  it.  A 
fair  proportion  should  always  be  observed  between 
effort  and  effect,  between  promise  and  performance. 


KEEPING   A   SECRET  317 

"  But  if  the  audience  happens  to  misread  the  play- 
wright's design,  and  form  exaggerated  and  irra- 
tional expectations  ?  "  That  merely  means  that  the 
playwright  does  not  know  his  business,  or,  at  any 
rate,  does  not  know  his  audience.  It  is  his  business 
to  play  upon  the  collective  mind  of  his  audience 
as  upon  a  keyboard  —  to  arouse  just  the  right  order 
and  measure  of  anticipation,  and  fulfil  it,  or  outdo 
it,  in  just  the  right  way  at  just  the  right  time.  The 
skill  of  the  dramatist,  as  distinct  from  his  genius 
or  inspiration,  lies  in  the  correctness  of  his  insight 
into  the  mind  of  his  audience. 


BOOK  IV 
THE   END 


XVIII 

CLIMAX   AND   ANTICLIMAX 

IF  it  were  as  easy  to  write  a  good  last  act  as 
a  good  first  act,  we  should  be  able  to  reckon 
three  masterpieces  for  every  one  that  we  can  name 
at  present.  The  reason  why  the  last  act  should 
offer  special  difficulties  is  not  far  to  seek.  We  have 
agreed  to  regard  a  play  as  essentially  a  crisis  in  the 
lives  of  one  or  more  persons;  and  we  all  know 
that  crises  are  much  more  apt  to  have  a  definite 
beginning  than  a  definite  end.  We  can  almost 
always  put  our  finger  upon  the  moment  —  not,  in- 
deed, when  the  crisis  began  —  but  when  we  clearly 
realized  its  presence  or  its  imminence.  A  chance 
meeting,  the  receipt  of  a  letter  or  a  telegram,  a 
particular  turn  given  to  a  certain  conversation,  even 
the  mere  emergence  into  consciousness  of  a  pre- 
viously latent  feeling  or  thought,  may  mark  quite 
definitely  the  moment  of  germination,  so  to  speak, 
of  a  given  crisis;  and  it  is  comparatively  easy  to 
dramatize  such  a  moment.  But  how  few  crises 
come  to  a  definite  or  dramatic  conclusion!  Nine 
times  out  of  ten  they  end  in  some  petty  compromise, 
or  do  not  end  at  all,  but  simply  subside,  like  the 
waves  of  the  sea  when  the  storm  has  blown  itself 
out.  It  is  the  playwright's  chief  difficulty  to  find 

321 


322  PLAY-MAKING 

a  crisis  with  an  ending  which  satisfies  at  once  his 
artistic  conscience  and  the  requirements  of  dramatic 
effect. 

And  the  difficulty  becomes  greater  the  nearer  we 
approach  to  reality.  In  the  days  when  tragedy  and 
comedy  were  cast  in  fixed,  conventional  moulds, 
the  playwright's  task  was  much  simpler.  It  was 
thoroughly  understood  that  a  tragedy  ended  with 
one  or  more  deaths,  a  comedy  with  one  or  more 
marriages;  so  that  the  question  of  a  strong  or 
a  weak  ending  did  not  arise.  The  end  might  be 
strongly  or  weakly  led  up  to,  but,  in  itself,  it  was 
foreordained.  Now  that  these  moulds  are  broken, 
and  both  marriage  and  death  may  be  said  to  have 
lost  their  prestige  as  the  be-all  and  end-all  of 
drama,  the  playwright's  range  of  choice  is  un- 
limited, and  the  difficulty  of  choosing  has  become 
infinitely  greater.  Our  comedies  are  much  more 
apt  to  begin  than  to  end  with  marriage,  and  death 
has  come  to  be  regarded  as  a  rather  cheap  and 
conventional  expedient  for  cutting  the  knots  of  life. 

From  the  fact  that  "  the  difficulty  becomes 
greater  the  nearer  we  approach  to  reality,"  it  fur- 
ther follows  that  the  higher  the  form  of  drama, 
the  more  probable  is  it  that  the  demands  of  truth 
and  the  requirements  of  dramatic  effect  may  be 
found  to  clash.  In  melodrama,  the  curtain  falls 
of  its  own  accord,  so  to  speak,  when  the  handcuffs 
are  transferred  from  the  hero's  wrists  to  the  vil- 
lain's. In  an  adventure-play,  whether  farcical  or 
romantic,  when  the  adventure  is  over  the  play  is 


CLIMAX   AND   ANTICLIMAX       323 

done.  The  author's  task  is  merely  to  keep  the  inter- 
est of  the  adventure  afoot  until  he  is  ready  to  drop 
his  curtain.  This  is  a  point  of  craftsmanship  in 
which  playwrights  often  fail;  but  it  is  a  point  of 
craftsmanship  only.  In  plays  of  a  higher  order, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  difficulty  is  often  inherent  in 
the  theme,  and  not  to  be  overcome  by  any  feat  of 
craftsmanship.  If  the  dramatist  were  to  eschew 
all  crises  that  could  not  be  made  to  resolve  them- 
selves with  specifically  dramatic  crispness  and  de- 
cisiveness, he  would  very  seriously  limit  the  domain 
of  his  art.  Many  excellent  themes  would  be  dis- 
torted and  ruined  by  having  an  emphatic  ending 
forced  upon  them.  It  is  surely  much  better  that 
they  should  be  brought  to  their  natural  unemphatic 
ending,  than  that  they  should  be  either  falsified  or 
ignored. 

I  suggest,  then,  that  the  modern  tendency  to  take 
lightly  Aristotle's  demand  that  the  drama  should 
have  a  "  beginning,  a  middle,  and  an  end,"  arises 
from  the  nature  of  things,  and  implies,  not  neces- 
sarily, nor  even  probably,  a  decline  in  craftsman- 
ship, but  a  new  intimacy  of  relation  to  life,  and  a 
new  sincerity  of  artistic  conscience.  I  suggest  that 
the  "  weak  last  act,"  of  which  critics  so  often  com- 
plain, is  a  natural  development  from  which  authors 
ought  not,  on  occasion,  to  shrink,  and  of  which 
critics  ought,  on  occasion,  to  recognize  the  neces- 
sity. To  elevate  it  into  a  system  is  absurd.  There 
is  certainly  no  more  reason  for  deliberately  avoid- 
ing an  emphatic  ending  than  for  mechanically  fore- 


324  PLAY-MAKING  - 

ing  one.  But  authors  and  critics  alike  should  learn 
to  distinguish  the  themes  which  do,  from  the  themes 
which  do  not,  call  for  a  definite,  trenchant  solution, 
and  should  handle  them,  and  judge  them,  in  accord- 
ance with  their  inherent  quality. 

Let  us,  however,  define  our  terms,  and  be  sure 
that  we  know  what  we  are  talking  about.  By  an 
"  unemphatic  ending  "  I  am  far  from  meaning  a 
makeshift  ending,  an  ending  carelessly  and  conven- 
tionally huddled  up.  Nor  do  I  mean  an  indecisive 
ending,  where  the  curtain  falls,  as  the  saying  goes, 
on  a  note  of  interrogation.  An  unemphatic  end- 
ing, as  I  understand  it,  is  a  deliberate  anticlimax, 
an  idyllic,  or  elegiac,  or  philosophic  last  act,  follow- 
ing upon  a  penultimate  act  of  very  much  higher 
tension.  The  disposition  to  condemn  such  an  end- 
ing off-hand  is  what  I  am  here  pleading  against.  It 
is  sometimes  assumed  that  the  playwright  ought 
always  to  make  his  action  conclude  within  five  min- 
utes of  its  culmination;  but  for  such  a  hard-and- 
fast  rule  I  can  find  no  sufficient  reason.  The  conse- 
quences of  a  great  emotional  or  spiritual  crisis 
cannot  always  be  worked  out,  or  even  fore- 
shadowed, within  so  brief  a  space  of  time.  If, 
after  such  a  crisis,  we  are  unwilling  to  keep  our 
seats  for  another  half-hour,  in  order  to  learn  "  what 
came  of  it  all,"  the  author  has  evidently  failed  to 
awaken  in  us  any  real  interest  in  his  characters. 

A  good  instance  of  the  unemphatic  ending  is 
the  last  act  of  Sir  Arthur  Pinero's  Letty.  This 
"  epilogue  "  —  so  the  author  calls  it  —  has  been 


CLIMAX    AND   ANTICLIMAX       325 

denounced  as  a  concession  to  popular  sentimentality, 
and  an  unpardonable  anticlimax.  An  anticlimax  it 
is,  beyond  all  doubt ;  but  it  does  not  follow  that  it 
is  an  artistic  blemish.  Nothing  would  have  been 
easier  than  not  to  write  it  —  to  make  the  play  end 
with  Letty's  awakening  from  her  dream,  and  her 
flight  from  Letchmere's  rooms.  But  the  author 
has  set  forth,  not  merely  to  interest  us  in  an  ad- 
venture, but  to  draw  a  character;  and  it  was 
essential  to  our  full  appreciation  of  Letty's  char- 
acter that  we  should  know  what,  after  all,  she  made 
of  her  life.  When  Iris,  most  hapless  of  women, 
went  out  into  the  dark,  there  was  nothing  more 
that  we  needed  to  know  of  her.  We  could  guess 
the  sequel  only  too  easily.  But  the  case  of  Letty 
was  wholly  different.  Her  exit  was  an  act  of 
will,  triumphing  over  a  form  of  temptation  pecul- 
iarly alluring  to  her  temperament.  There  was  in 
her  character  precisely  that  grit  which  Iris  lacked ; 
and  we  wanted  to  know  what  it  would  do  for  her. 
This  was  not  a  case  for  an  indecisive  ending,  a  note 
of  interrogation.  The  author  felt  no  doubt  as  to 
Letty's  destiny,  and  he  wanted  to  leave  his  audi- 
ence in  no  doubt.  From  Iris's  fate  we  were  only 
too  willing  to  avert  our  eyes;  but  it  would  have 
been  a  sensible  discomfort  to  us  to  be  left  in  the 
dark  about  Letty's. 

This,  then,  I  regard  as  a  typical  instance  of 
justified  anticlimax.  Another  is  the  idyllic  last 
act  of  The  Princess  and  the  Butterfly,  in  which, 
moreover,  despite  its  comparatively  subdued  tone, 


326  PLAY-MAKING 

the  tension  is  maintained  to  the  end.  A  very  dif- 
ferent matter  is  the  third  act  of  The  Benefit  of  the 
Doubt,  already  alluded  to.  This  is  a  pronounced 
case  of  the  makeshift  ending,  inspired  (to  all  ap- 
pearance) simply  by  the  fact  that  the  play  must  end 
somehow,  and  that  no  better  idea  happens  to  pre- 
sent itself.  Admirable  as  are  the  other  acts,  one 
is  almost  inclined  to  agree  with  Dumas  that  an 
author  ought  not  to  embark  upon  a  theme  unless 
he  foresees  a  better  way  out  of  it  than  this.  It 
should  be  noted,  too,  that  The  Benefit  of  the  Doubt 
is  a  three-act  play,  and  that,  in  a  play  laid  out 
on  this  scale,  a  whole  act  of  anticlimax  is  neces- 
sarily disproportionate.  It  is  one  thing  to  relax 
the  tension  in  the  last  act  out  of  four  or  five; 
quite  another  thing  in  the  last  act  out  of  three.  In 
other  words,  the  culminating  point  of  a  four-  or 
five-act  play  may  be  placed  in  the  penultimate  act; 
in  a  three-act  play,  it  should  come,  at  earliest, 
in  the  penultimate  scene.1 

In  the  works  of  Mr.  Henry  Arthur  Jones  we 
find  several  instances  of  the  unemphatic  last  act  — 
some  clearly  justified,  others  much  less  so.  Among 
the  former  I  unhesitatingly  reckon  the  fourth  act 
of  Mrs.  Dane's  Defence.  It  would  not  have  been 
difficult,  but  surely  most  inartistic,  to  huddle  up 
the  action  in  five  minutes  after  Mrs.  Dane's  tragic 
collapse  under  Sir  Daniel  Carteret's  cross-examina- 

1  The  fact  that  a  great  poet  can  ignore  such  precepts  with 
impunity  is  proved  by  the  exquisite  anticlimax  of  the  third 
act  of  D'Annunzio's  La  Gioconda. 


CLIMAX   AND   ANTICLIMAX       327 

tion.  She  might  have  taken  poison  and  died  in 
picturesque  contortions  on  the  sofa;  or  Lionel 
might  have  defied  all  counsels  of  prudence  and 
gone  off  with  her  in  spite  of  her  past;  or  she 
might  have  placed  Lionel's  hand  in  Janet's,  saying : 
"  The  game  is  up.  Bless  you,  my  children.  I  am 
going  into  the  nearest  nunnery."  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  Mr.  Jones  brought  his  action  to  its  natural 
close  in  a  quiet,  sufficiently  adroit,  last  act;  and 
I  do  not  see  that  criticism  has  any  just  complaint 
to  make. 

In  recent  French  drama,  La  Douloureuse,  al- 
ready cited,  affords  an  excellent  instance  of  a 
quiet  last  act.  After  the  violent  and  heartrending 
rupture  between  the  lovers  in  the  third  act,  we 
feel  that,  though  this  paroxysm  of  pain  is  justified 
by  the  circumstances,  it  will  not  last  for  ever,  and 
Philippe  and  Helene  will  come  together  again. 
This  is  also  M.  Donnay's  view :  and  he  devotes 
his  whole  last  act,  quite  simply,  to  a  duologue  of 
reconciliation.  It  seems  to  me  a  fault  of  propor- 
tion, however,  that  he  should  shift  his  locality  from 
Paris  to  the  Riviera,  and  should  place  the  brief 
duologue  in  a  romantic  woodland  scene.  An  act 
of  anticlimax  should  be  treated,  so  to  speak,  as 
unpretentiously  as  possible.  To  invent  an  elabo- 
rate apparatus  for  it  is  to  emphasize  the  anticlimax 
by  throwing  it  into  unnecessary  relief. 

This  may  be  a  convenient  place  for  a  few  words 
on  the  modern  fashion  of  eschewing  emphasis,  not 
only  in  last  acts,  but  at  every  point  where  the 


328  PLAY-MAKING 

old  French  dramaturgy  demanded  it,  and  espe- 
cially in  act-endings.  Punch  has  a  pleasant  allu- 
sion to  this  tendency  in  two  suggested  examination- 
papers  for  an  "  Academy  of  Dramatists  " :  — 

A  —  FOR  THE  CLASSICAL  SIDE  ONLY. 

i.    What  is  a  "  curtain";  and  how  should  it  be 

led  up  to? 
B  —  FOR  THE  MODERN  SIDE  ONLY. 

I.  What  is  a  "  curtain " ;    and  how  can  it  be 
avoided  ? 

Some  modern  playwrights  have  fled  in  a  sort  of 
panic  from  the  old  "  picture-poster  situation  "  to 
the  other  extreme  of  always  dropping  their  cur- 
tain when  the  audience  least  expects  it.  This  is 
not  a  practice  to  be  commended.  One  has  often 
seen  an  audience  quite  unnecessarily  chilled  by  a 
disconcerting  "  curtain."  There  should  be  moder- 
ation even  in  the  shrinking  from  theatricality. 

This  shrinking  is  particularly  marked,  though 
I  do  not  say  it  is  carried  too  far,  in  the  plays  of 
Mr.  Galsworthy.  Even  the  most  innocent  tricks 
of  emphasis  are  to  him  snares  of  the  Evil  One. 
He  would  sooner  die  than  drop  his  curtain  on 
a  particularly  effective  line.  It  is  his  chief  am- 
bition that  you  should  never  discern  any  arrange- 
ment, any  intention,  in  his  work.  As  a  rule,  the 
only  reason  you  can  see  for  his  doing  thus  or 
thus  is  his  desire  that  you  should  see  no  reason 
for  it.  He  does  not  carry  this  tendency,  as  some 
do,  to  the  point  of  eccentricity;  but  he  certainly 


CLIMAX   AND    ANTICLIMAX       329 

goes  as  far  as  any  one  should  be  advised  to  follow. 
A  little  further,  and  you  incur  the  danger  of 
becoming  affectedly  unaffected,  artificially  inarti- 
ficial. 

I  am  far  from  pleading  for  the  conventional 
tableau  at  the  end  of  each  act,  with  all  the  char- 
acters petrified,  as  it  were,  in  penny-plain-twopence- 
coloured  attitudes.  But  it  is  certainly  desirable 
that  the  fall  of  the  curtain  should  not  take  an 
audience  entirely  by  surprise,  and  even  that  the 
spectator  should  feel  the  moment  to  be  rightly 
chosen,  though  he  might  be  unable  to  give  any 
reason  for  his  feeling.  Moreover  —  this  may  seem 
a  supersubtlety,  but  one  has  seen  it  neglected  with 
notably  bad  effect  —  a  playwright  should  never 
let  his  audience  expect  the  fall  of  a  curtain  at 
a  given  point,  and  then  balk  their  expectancy,  un- 
less he  is  sure  that  he  holds  in  reserve  a  more 
than  adequate  compensation.  There  is  nothing  so 
dangerous  as  to  let  a  play,  or  an  act,  drag  on  when 
the  audience  feels  in  its  heart  that  it  is  really  over, 
and  that  "  the  rest  is  silence  "  —  or  ought  to  be. 
The  end  of  Mr.  Granville  Barker's  fine  play,  The 
Voysey  Inheritance,  was  injured  by  the  fact  that, 
several  minutes  before  the  curtain  actually  fell, 
he  had  given  what  seemed  an  obvious  "  cue  for 
curtain."  I  do  not  say  that  what  followed  was 
superfluous;  what  I  do  say  is  that  the  author 
ought  to  have  been  careful  not  to  let  us  imagine 
that  the  colloquy  between  Edward  and  Alice  was 
over  when  in  fact  it  had  still  some  minutes  to  run. 


330  PLAY-MAKING 

An  even  more  remarkable  play,  The  Madras  House, 
was  ruined,  on  its  first  night,  by  a  long  final  anti- 
climax. Here,  however,  the  fault  did  not  lie  in 
awakening  a  premature  expectation  of  the  close, 
but  in  the  fact  that  we  somehow  were  more  inter- 
ested in  the  other  characters  of  the  play  than  in 
the  pair  who  held  the  stage  throughout  the  long 
concluding  scene. 

Once  more  I  turn  to  La  Douloureuse  for  an  in- 
stance of  an  admirable  act-ending  of  the  quiet 
modern  type.  The  third  act  —  the  terrible  peripety 
in  the  love  of  Philippe  and  Helene —  has  run  its 
agonizing  course,  and  worked  itself  out.  The  old 
dramaturgy  would  certainly  have  ended  the  scene 
with  a  bang,  so  to  speak  —  a  swoon  or  a  scream, 
a  tableau  of  desolation,  or,  at  the  very  least,  a  piece 
of  tearful  rhetoric.  M.  Donnay  does  nothing  of 
the  sort.  He  lets  his  lovers  unpack  their  hearts 
with  words  until  they  are  exhausted,  broken,  dazed 
with  misery,  and  have  nothing  more  to  say.  Then 
Helene  asks :  "  What  o'clock  is  it?  "  Philippe  looks 
at  his  watch :  "  Nearly  seven."  "  I  must  be  go- 
ing "  —  and  she  dries  her  eyes,  smoothes  her  hair, 
pulls  herself  together,  in  a  word,  to  face  the  world 
again.  The  mechanical  round  of  life  re-asserts  its 
hold  upon  them.  "  Help  me  with  my  cloak,"  she 
says ;  and  he  holds  her  mantle  for  her,  and  tucks 
in  the  puffed  sleeves  of  her  blouse.  Then  he  takes 
up  the  lamp  and  lights  her  out  —  and  the  curtain 
falls.  A  model  "  curtain  " ! 


XIX 

CONVERSION 

reader  may  have  noticed,  possibly  with 
A  surprise,  that  some  of  the  stock  terms  of  dra- 
matic criticism  occur  but  rarely  in  these  pages,  or 
not  at  all.  One  of  them  is  denouement.  Accord- 
ing to  orthodox  theory,  I  ought  to  have  made  the 
denouement  the  subject  of  a  whole  chapter,  if  not 
of  a  whole  book.  Why  have  I  not  done  so? 

For  two  reasons.  The  lesser,  but  not  negligible, 
reason  is  that  we  possess  no  convenient  English 
word  for  the  unknotting  or  disentangling  of  a 
complication.  Denouement  itself  cannot  be  plausi- 
bly Anglicized,  and  no  native  word  has  as  yet,  by 
common  consent,  been  accepted  as  its  equivalent. 
I  sometimes  wish  we  could  adopt,  and  print  with- 
out italics,  the  excellent  and  expressive  Greek  word 
"  lusis  " ;  but  I  cannot,  on  my  own  responsibility, 
attempt  so  daring  an  innovation.  The  second  and 
determining  reason  for  not  making  the  denouement 
one  of  the  heads  of  my  argument,  is  that,  the  play 
of  intrigue  being  no  longer  the  dominant  dra- 
matic form,  the  image  of  disentangling  has  lost 
some  of  its  special  fitness.  It  is  only  in  a  some- 
what strained  and  conventional  sense  that  the  term 
nodus,  or  knot,  can  be  applied  to  the  sort  of  crisis 


332  PLAY-MAKING 

with  which  the  modern  drama  normally  deals; 
and  if  we  do  not  naturally  think  of  the  crisis 
as  a  knot,  we  naturally  do  not  think  of  its  close 
as  an  unknotting. 

Nevertheless,  there  are  frequent  cases  in  which 
the  end  of  a  play  depends  on  something  very  like 
the  unravelling  of  a  tangled  skein;  and  still  more 
often,  perhaps,  is  it  brought  about  through  the 
loosening  of  some  knot  in  the  mind  of  one  or  more 
of  the  characters.  This  was  the  characteristic  end 
of  the  old  comedy.  The  heavy  father,  or  cantan- 
kerous guardian,  who  for  four  acts  and  a  half 
had  stood  between  the  lovers,  suddenly  changed 
his  mind,  and  all  was  well.  Even  by  our  ancestors 
this  was  reckoned  a  rather  too  simple  method  of 
disentanglement.  Lisideius,  in  Dryden's  dialogue,1 
in  enumerating  the  points  in  which  the  French 
drama  is  superior  to  the  English  notes  that  — 

You  never  see  any  of  their  plays  end  with  a  con- 
version, or  simple  change  of  will,  which  is  the  ordi- 
nary way  which  our  poets  use  to  end  theirs.  It  shew 
little  art  in  the  conclusion  of  a  dramatick  poem,  when 
they  who  have  hindered  the  felicity  during  the  four 
acts,  desist  from  it  in  the  fifth,  without  some  power- 
ful cause  to  take  them  off  their  design. 

The  remark  of  Lisideius  is  suggested  by  a  pas- 
sage in  Corneille,  who  instances,  as  an  apt  and 
artistic  method  of  bringing  about  the  conversion 
of  a  heavy  father,  that  his  daughter's  lover  should 
1  Of  Dramatic  Poesy,  ed:  Arnold,  1903,  p.  51. 


CONVERSION  333 

earn  his  gratitude  by  rescuing  him  from  assassi- 
nation ! 

Conversions,  closely  examined,  will  be  found  to 
fall  into  two  classes:  changes  of  volition,  and 
changes  of  sentiment.  It  was  the  former  class 
that  Dryden  had  in  mind ;  and,  with  reference  to 
this  class,  the  principle  he  indicates  remains  a  sound 
one.  A  change  of  resolve  should  never  be  due  to 
mere  lapse  of  time  —  to  the  necessity  for  bringing 
the  curtain  down  and  letting  the  audience  go  home. 
It  must  always  be  rendered  plausible  by  some  new 
fact  or  new  motive:  some  hitherto  untried  appeal 
to  reason  or  emotion.  This  rule,  however,  is  too 
obvious  to  require  enforcement.  It  was  not  quite 
superfluous  so  long  as  the  old  convention  of 
comedy  endured.  For  a  century  and  a  half  after 
Dryden's  time,  hard-hearted  parents  were  apt  to 
withdraw  their  opposition  to  their  children's  "  fe- 
licity "  for  no  better  reason  than  that  the  fifth 
act  was  drawing  to  a  close.  But  this  formula 
is  practically  obsolete.  Changes  of  will,  on  the 
modern  stage,  are  not  always  adequately  motived; 
but  that  is  because  of  individual  inexpertness,  not 
because  of  any  failure  to  recognize  theoretically 
the  necessity  for  adequate  motivation. 

Changes  of  sentiment  are  much  more  important 
and  more  difficult  to  handle.  A  change  of  will 
can  always  manifest  itself  in  action ;  but  it  is 
very  difficult  to  externalize  convincingly  a  mere 
change  of  heart.  When  the  conclusion  of  a  play 
hinges  (as  it  frequently  does)  on  a  conversion 


334  PLAY-MAKING 

of  this  nature,  it  becomes  a  matter  of  the  first 
moment  that  it  should  not  merely  be  asserted,  but 
proved.  Many  a  promising  play  has  gone  wrong 
because  of  the  author's  neglect,  or  inability,  to 
comply  with  this  condition. 

It  has  often  been  observed  that  of  all  Ibsen's 
thoroughly  mature  works,  from  A  Doll's  House  to 
John  Gabriel  Borkman,  The  Lady  from  the  Sea 
is  the  loosest  in  texture,  the  least  masterly  in 
construction.  The  fact  that  it  leaves  this  impres- 
sion on  the  mind  is  largely  due,  I  think,  to  a 
single  fault.  The  conclusion  of  the  play  —  Ellida's 
clinging  to  Wangel  and  rejection  of  the  Stranger 
—  depends  entirely  on  a  change  in  Wangel's  men- 
tal attitude,  of  which  we  have  no  proof  whatever 
beyond  his  bare  assertion.  Ellida,  in  her  over- 
wrought mood,  is  evidently  inclining  to  yield  to 
the  uncanny  allurement  of  the  Stranger's  claim 
upon  her,  when  Wangel,  realizing  that  her  sanity 
is  threatened,  says :  — 

WANGEL:  It  shall  not  come  to  that.  There  is  no 
other  way  of  deliverance  for  you  —  at  least  I  see 
none.  And  therefore  —  therefore  I  —  cancel  our 
bargain  on  the  spot.  Now  you  can  choose  your  own 
path,  in  full  —  full  freedom. 

ELLIDA   (Gases  at  him  awhile,  as  if  speechless) 
Is  this  true  —  true  —  what  you  say?    Do  you  mean 
it  —  from  your  inmost  heart  ? 

WAGNEL:  Yes  —  from  the  inmost  depths  of  my 
tortured  heart,  I  mean  it  ...  Now  your  own  true 
life  can  return  to  its  —  its  right  groove  again.  For 


CONVERSION  335 

now  you  can  choose  in  freedom;  and  on  your  own 
responsibility,  Ellida. 

ELLIDA  :  In  freedom  —  and  on  my  own  responsibil- 
ity? Responsibility?  This  —  this  transforms  every- 
thing. 

—  and  she  promptly  gives  the  Stranger  his  dis- 
missal. Now  this  is  inevitably  felt  to  be  a  weak 
conclusion,  because  it  turns  entirely  on  a  condition 
of  Wangel's  mind  of  which  he  gives  no  positive 
and  convincing  evidence.  Nothing  material  is 
changed  by  his  change  of  heart.  He  could  not  in 
any  case  have  restrained  Ellida  by  force;  or,  if 
the  law  gave  him  the  abstract  right  to  do  so,  he 
certainly  never  had  the  slightest  intention  of  exer- 
cising it.  Psychologically,  indeed,  the  incident  is 
acceptable  enough.  The  saner  part  of  Ellida's  will 
was  always  on  Wangel's  side ;  and  a  merely  verbal 
undoing  of  the  "  bargain "  with  which  she  re- 
proached herself  might  quite  naturally  suffice  to 
turn  the  scale  decisively  in  his  favour.  But  what 
may  suffice  for  Ellida  is  not  enough  for  the  audi- 
ence. Too  much  is  made  to  hang  upon  a  verbally 
announced  conversion.  The  poet  ought  to  have 
invented  some  material  —  or,  at  the  very  least, 
some  impressively  symbolic  —  proof  of  Wangel's 
change  of  heart.  Had  he  done  so,  The  Lady  from 
the  Sea  would  assuredly  have  taken  a  higher  rank 
among  his  works. 

Let  me  further  illustrate  my  point  by  comparing 
a  very  small  thing  with  a  very  great.  The  late 
Captain  Marshall  wrote  a  "  farcical  romance " 


336  PLAY-MAKING 

named  The  Duke  of  Killiecrankie,  in  which  that 
nobleman,  having  been  again  and  again  rejected 
by  the  Lady  Henrietta  Addison,  kidnapped  the 
obdurate  fair  one,  and  imprisoned  her  in  a  crag- 
castle  in  the  Highlands.  Having  kept  her  for  a 
week  in  deferential  durance,  and  shown  her  that 
he  was  not  the  inefficient  nincompoop  she  had  taken 
him  for,  he  threw  open  the  prison  gate,  and  said 
to  her :  "  Go !  I  set  you  free !  "  The  moment  she 
saw  the  gate  unlocked,  and  realized  that  she  could 
indeed  go  when  and  where  she  pleased,  she  also 
realized  that  she  had  not  the  least  wish  to  go,  and 
flung  herself  into  her  captor's  arms.  Here  we 
have  Ibsen's  situation  transposed  into  the  key  of 
fantasy,  and  provided  with  the  material  "  guar- 
antee of  good  faith  "  which  is  lacking  in  The  Lady 
from  the  Sea.  The  Duke's  change  of  mind,  his 
will  to  set  the  Lady  Henrietta  free,  is  visibly 
demonstrated  by  the  actual  opening  of  the  prison 
gate,  so  that  we  believe  in  it,  and  believe  that  she 
believes  in  it.  The  play  was  a  trivial  affair,  and 
is  deservedly  forgotten;  but  the  situation  was 
effective  because  it  obeyed  the  law  that  a  change 
of  will  or  of  feeling,  occurring  at  a  crucial  point 
in  a  dramatic  action,  must  be  certified  by  some 
external  evidence,  on  pain  of  leaving  the  audience 
unimpressed. 

This  is  a  more  important  matter  than  it  may  at 
first  sight  appear.  How  to  bring  home  to  the 
audience  a  decisive  change  of  heart  is  one  of  the 
ever-recurring  problems  of  the  playwright's  craft 


CONVERSION  337 

In  The  Lady  from  the  Sea,  Ibsen  failed  to  solve 
it :  in  Rosmershulm  he  solved  it  by  heroic  measures. 
The  whole  catastrophe  is  determined  by  Rosmer's 
inability  to  accept  without  proof  Rebecca's  decla- 
ration that  Rosmersholm  has  "  ennobled  "  her,  and 
that  she  is  no  longer  the  same  woman  whose  re- 
lentless egoism  drove  Beata  into  the  mill-race. 
Rebecca  herself  puts  it  to  him :  "  How  can  you 
believe  me  on  my  bare  word  after  to-day  ?  "  There 
is  only  one  proof  she  can  give  —  that  of  "  going 
the  way  Beata  went."  She  gives  it :  and  Rosmer, 
who  cannot  believe  her  if  she  lives,  and  will  not 
survive  her  if  she  dies,  goes  with  her  to  her  end. 
But  the  cases  are  not  very  frequent,  fortunately, 
in  which  such  drastic  methods  of  proof  are  appro- 
priate or  possible.  The  dramatist  must,  as  a  rule, 
attain  his  end  by  less  violent  means ;  and  often  he 
fails  to  attain  it  at  all. 

A  play  by  Mr.  Haddon  Chambers,  The  Awaken- 
ing, turned  on  a  sudden  conversion  —  the  "  awak- 
ening," in  fact,  referred  to  in  the  title.  A  profes- 
sional lady-killer,  a  noted  Don  Juan,  has  been  idly 
making  love  to  a  country  maiden,  whose  heart  is 
full  of  innocent  idealisms.  She  discovers  his  true 
character,  or,  at  any  rate,  his  reputation,  and  is 
horror-stricken,  while  practically  at  the  same  mo- 
ment, he  "  awakens  "  to  the  error  of  his  ways,  and 
is  seized  with  a  passion  for  her  as  single-minded 
and  idealistic  as  hers  for  him.  But  how  are  the 
heroine  and  the  audience  to  be  assured  of  the  fact? 
That  is  just  the  difficulty;  and  the  author  takes 


338  PLAY-MAKING 

no  effectual  measures  to  overcome  it.  The  heroine, 
of  course,  is  ultimately  convinced ;  but  the  audience 
remains  sceptical,  to  the  detriment  of  the  desired 
effect.  "  Sceptical,"  perhaps,  is  not  quite  the  right 
word.  The  state  of  mind  of  a  fictitious  character 
is  not  a  subject  for  actual  belief  or  disbelief.  We 
are  bound  to  accept  theoretically  what  the  author 
tells  us;  but  in  this  case  he  has  failed  to  make  us 
intimately  feel  and  know  that  it  is  true.1 

In  Mr.  Alfred  Sutro's  play  The  Builder  of 
Bridges,  Dorothy  Faringay,  in  her  devotion  to  her 
forger  brother,  has  conceived  the  rather  disgraceful 
scheme  of  making  one  of  his  official  superiors  fall 
in  love  with  her,  in  order  to  induce  him  to  become 
practically  an  accomplice  in  her  brother's  crime. 
She  succeeds  beyond  her  hopes.  Edward  Thurs- 
field  does  fall  in  love  with  her,  and,  at  a  great 
sacrifice,  replaces  the  money  the  brother  has  stolen. 
But,  in  a  very  powerful  peripety-scene  in  the  third 
act,  Thursfield  learns  that  Dorothy  has  been  de- 
liberately beguiling  him,  while  in  fact  she  was  en- 
gaged to  another  man.  The  truth  is,  however,  that 
she  has  really  come  to  love  Thursfield  passionately, 
and  has  broken  her  engagement  with  the  other, 
for  whom  she  never  truly  cared.  So  the  author 


1  In  Mr.  Somerset  Maugham's  Grace  the  heroine  under- 
goes a  somewhat  analogous  change  of  heart,  coming  to  love 
the  husband  whom  she  has  previously  despised.  But  we 
have  no  difficulty  in  accepting  her  conversion,  partly  because 
its  reasons  are  clear  and  fairly  adequate,  partly  because 
there  is  no  question  of  convincing  the  husband,  who  has 
never  realized  her  previous  contempt  for  him. 


CONVERSION  339 

tells  us,  and  so  we  are  willing  enough  to  believe 
—  if  he  can  devise  any  adequate  method  of  making 
Thursfield  believe  it.  Mr.  Sutro's  handling  of  the 
difficulty  seems  to  me  fairly,  but  not  conspicuously, 
successful.  I  cite  the  case  as  a  typical  instance 
of  the  problem,  apart  from  the  merits  or  demerits 
of  the  solution. 

It  may  be  said  that  the  difficulty  of  bringing 
home  to  us  the  reality  of  a  revulsion  of  feeling,  or 
a  radical  change  of  mental  attitude,  is  only  a  par- 
ticular case  of  the  playwright's  general  problem 
of  convincingly  externalizing  inward  conditions 
and  processes.  That  is  true:  but  the  special  im- 
portance of  a  conversion  which  unties  the  knot 
and  brings  the  curtain  down  seemed  to  render  it 
worthy  of  special  consideration. 


XX 

BLIND-ALLEY  THEMES  — AND   OTHERS 

A  BLIND-ALLEY  theme,  as  its  name  imports, 
is  one  from  which  there  is  no  exit.  It  is  a 
problem  incapable  of  solution,  or,  rather,  of  which 
all  possible  solutions  are  equally  unsatisfactory  and 
undesirable.  The  playwright  cannot  too  soon  make 
sure  that  he  has  not  strayed  into  such  a  ncn 
thoroughfare.  Whether  an  end  be  comic  or  tragic, 
romantic  or  ironic,  happy  or  disastrous,  it  should 
satisfy  something  within  us  —  our  sense  of  truth, 
or  of  beauty,  or  of  sublimity,  or  of  justice,  or  of 
humour,  or,  at  the  least  or  lowest,  our  cynical 
sense  of  the  baseness  of  human  nature,  and  the 
vanity  of  human  aspirations.  But  a  play  which 
satisfies  neither  our  higher  nor  our  lower  instincts, 
baffles  our  sympathies,  and  leaves  our  desires  at 
fault  between  equally  inacceptable  alternatives  — 
such  a  play,  whatever  beauties  of  detail  it  may 
possess,  is  a  weariness  of  the  spirit,  and  an  artistic 
blunder. 

There  are  in  literature  two  conspicuous  examples 
of  the  blind-alley  theme  —  two  famous  plays, 
wherein  two  heroines  are  placed  in  somewhat  simi- 
lar dilemmas,  which  merely  paralyze  our  sympa- 

340 


BLIND-ALLEY   THEMES  341 

thies  and  inhibit  our  moral  judgment.  The  first  of 
these  is  Measure  for  Measure.  If  ever  there  was 
an  insoluble  problem  in  casuistry,  it  is  that  which 
Shakespeare  has  here  chosen  to  present  to  us. 
Isabella  is  forced  to  choose  between  what  we  can 
only  describe  as  two  detestable  evils.  If  she  re- 
sists Angelo,  and  lets  her  brother  die,  she  recoils 
from  an  act  of  self-sacrifice;  and,  although  we 
may  coldly  approve,  we  cannot  admire  or  take 
pleasure  in  her  action.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  she 
determines  at  all  costs  to  save  her  brother's  life, 
her  sacrifice  is  a  thing  from  which  we  want  only 
to  avert  the  mind:  it  belongs  to  the  region  of 
what  Aristotle  calls  to  miaron,  the  odious  and  in- 
tolerable. Shakespeare,  indeed,  confesses  the  prob- 
lem insoluble  in  the  fact  that  he  leaves  it  unsolved 
—  evading  it  by  means  of  a  mediaeval  trick.  But 
where,  then,  was  the  use  of  presenting  it?  What 
is  the  artistic  profit  of  letting  the  imagination  play 
around  a  problem  which  merely  baffles  and  repels 
it?  Sardou,  indeed,  presented  the  same  problem, 
not  as  the  theme  of  a  whole  play,  but  only  of 
a  single  act;  and  he  solved  it  by  making  Floria 
Tosca  kill  Scarpia.  This  is  a  solution  which,  at 
any  rate,  satisfies  our  craving  for  crude  justice, 
and  is  melodramatically  effective.  Shakespeare 
probably  ignored  it,  partly  because  it  was  not  in 
his  sources,  partly  because,  for  some  obscure  rea- 
son, he  supposed  himself  to  be  writing  a  comedy. 
The  result  is  that,  though  the  play  contains  some 
wonderful  poetry,  and  has  been  from  time  to  time 


342  PLAY-MAKING 

revived,  it  has  never  taken  any  real  hold  upon 
popular  esteem. 

The  second  glaring  instance  of  a  blind-alley 
theme  is  that  of  Monna  Vanna.  We  have  all  of 
us,  I  suppose,  stumbled,  either  as  actors  or  on' 
lookers,  into  painful  situations,  which  not  even 
a  miracle  of  tact  could  possibly  save.  As  a  rule, 
of  course,  they  are  comic,  and  the  agony  they  cause 
may  find  a  safety-valve  in  laughter.  But  some- 
times there  occurs  some  detestable  incident,  over 
which  it  is  equally  impossible  to  laugh  and  to 
weep.  The  wisest  words,  the  most  graceful  acts, 
are  of  no  avail.  One  longs  only  to  sink  into  the 
earth,  or  vanish  into  thin  air.  Such  a  situation, 
on  the  largest  possible  scale,  is  that  presented  in 
Monna  Vanna.  It  differs  from  that  of  Measure 
for  Measure  in  the  fact  that  there  can  be  no  doubt 
as  to  the  moral  aspect  of  the  case.  It  is  quite  clear 
that  Giovanna  ought  to  sacrifice  herself  to  save, 
not  one  puling  Claudio,  but  a  whole  cityful  of  men, 
women,  and  children.  What  she  does  is  absolutely 
right;  but  the  conjuncture  is  none  the  less  a  gro- 
tesque and  detestable  one,  which  ought  to  be  talked 
about  and  thought  about  as  little  as  possible.  Every 
word  that  is  uttered  is  a  failure  in  tact.  Guido,  the 
husband,  behaves,  in  the  first  act,  with  a  violent 
egoism,  which  is  certainly  lacking  in  dignity;  but 
will  any  one  tell  me  what  would  be  a  dignified 
course  for  him  to  pursue  under  the  circumstances? 
The  sage  old  Marco,  too  —  that  fifteenth-century 
Renan  —  flounders  just  as  painfully  as  the  hot- 


BLIND-ALLEY    THEMES  343 

headed  Guido.  It  is  the  fatality  of  the  case  that 
"  he  cannot  open  his  mouth  without  putting  his 
foot  in  it " ;  and  a  theme  which  exposes  a  well- 
meaning  old  gentleman  to  this  painful  necessity  is 
one  by  all  means  to  be  avoided.  The  fact  that  it 
is  a  false  alarm,  and  that  there  is  no  rational  ex- 
planation for  Prinzivalle's  wanton  insult  to  a  wo- 
man whom  he  reverently  idolizes,  in  no  way  makes 
matters  better.1  Not  the  least  grotesque  thing  in 
the  play  is  Giovanna's  expectation  that  Guido  will 
receive  Prinzivalle  with  open  arms  because  he  has 
—  changed  his  mind.  We  can  feel  neither  ap- 
proval nor  disapproval,  sympathy  nor  antipathy, 
in  such  a  deplorable  conjunction  of  circumstances. 
All  we  wish  is  that  we  had  not  been  called  upon  to 
contemplate  it.2  Maeterlinck,  like  Shakespeare, 
was  simply  dallying  with  the  idea  of  a  squalid 
heroism  —  so  squalid,  indeed,  that  neither  he  nor 
his  predecessor  had  the  courage  to  carry  it  through. 
Pray  observe  that  the  defect  of  these  two 
themes  is  not  merely  that  they  are  "  unpleasant." 


1  I  have  good  reason  for  believing  that,  in  M.  Maeter- 
linck's original  scheme,  Prinzivalle  imposed  no  such  humili- 
ating condition.  Giovanna  went  of  her  own  motive  to  ap- 
peal to  his  clemency;  and  her  success  was  so  complete  that 
her  husband,  on  her  return,  could  not  believe  that  it  had 
been  won  by  avowable  means.  This  is  a  really  fine  concep- 
tion —  what  a  pity  that  the  poet  departed  from  it ! 

*  Much  has  been  made  of  the  Censor's  refusal  to  license 
Monna  Vanna;  but  I  think  there  is  more  to  be  said  for  his 
action  in  this  than  in  many  other  cases.  In  those  countries 
where  the  play  has  succeeded,  I  cannot  but  suspect  that  the 
appeal  it  made  was  not  wholly  to  the  higher  instincts  of  the 
public. 


344  PLAY-MAKING 

It  is  that  there  is  no  possible  way  out  of  them 
which  is  not  worse  than  unpleasant:  humiliating, 
and  distressing.  Let  the  playwright,  then,  before 
embarking  on  a  theme,  make  sure  that  he  has  some 
sort  of  satisfaction  to  offer  us  at  the  end,  if  it 
be  only  the  pessimistic  pleasure  of  realizing  some 
part  of  "  the  bitter,  old  and  wrinkled  truth  "  about 
life.  The  crimes  of  destiny  there  is  some  profit 
in  contemplating;  but  its  stupid  vulgarities  min- 
ister neither  to  profit  nor  delight. 

It  may  not  be  superfluous  to  give  at  this  point 
a  little  list  of  subjects  which,  though  not  blind- 
alley  themes,  are  equally  to  be  avoided.  Some 
of  them,  indeed,  are  the  reverse  of  blind-alley 
themes,  their  drawback  lying  in  the  fact  that  the 
way  out  of  them  is  too  tediously  apparent. 

At  the  head  of  this  list  I  would  place  what  may 
be  called  the  "  white  marriage  "  theme :  not  be- 
cause it  is  ineffective,  but  because  its  effectiveness 
is  very  cheap  and  has  been  sadly  overdone.  It 
occurs  in  two  varieties:  either  a  proud  but  penni- 
less damsel  is  married  to  a  wealthy  parvenu,  or 
a  woman  of  culture  and  refinement  is  married  to 
a  "  rough  diamond."  In  both  cases  the  action  con- 
sists of  the  transformation  of  a  nominal  into  a 
real  marriage ;  and  it  is  almost  impossible,  in  these 
days,  to  lend  any  novelty  to  the  process.  In  the 
good  old  Lady  of  Lyons  the  theme  was  decked  in 
trappings  of  romantic  absurdity,  which  somehow 
harmonized  with  it.  One  could  hear  in  it  a  far- 


BLIND-ALLEY    THEMES  345 

off  echo  of  revolutionary  rodomontade.  The  so- 
cial aspect  of  the  matter  was  emphasized,  and  the 
satire  on  middle-class  snobbery  was  cruelly  effect- 
ive. The  personal  aspect,  on  the  other  hand  —  the 
unfulfilment  of  the  nominal  marriage  —  was 
lightly  and  discreetly  handled,  according  to  early- 
Victorian  convention.  In  later  days  —  from  the 
time  of  M.  George  Ohnet's  Maitre  de  Forges  on- 
wards—  this  is  the  aspect  on  which  playwrights 
have  preferred  to  dwell.  Usually,  the  theme  shades 
off  into  the  almost  equally  hackneyed  Still  Waters 
Run  Deep  theme ;  for  there  is  apt  to  be  an  aristo- 
cratic lover  whom  the  unpolished  but  formidable 
husband  threatens  to  shoot  or  horsewhip,  and 
thereby  overcomes  the  last  remnant  of  repugnance 
in  the  breast  of  his  haughty  spouse.  In  The  Iron- 
master the  lover  was  called  the  Due  de  Bligny, 
or,  more  commonly,  the  Dook  de  Bleeny;  but  he 
has  appeared  under  many  aliases.  In  the  chief 
American  version  of  the  theme,  Mr.  Vaughn 
Moody's  Great  Divide,  the  lover  is  dispensed  with 
altogether,  being  inconsistent,  no  doubt,  with  the 
austere  manners  of  Milford  Corners,  Mass.  In 
one  of  the  recent  French  versions,  on  the  other 
hand  —  M.  Bernstein's  Samson  —  the  aristocratic 
lover  is  almost  as  important  a  character  as  the 
virile,  masterful,  plebeian  husband.  It  appears 
from  this  survey  —  which  might  be  largely  ex- 
tended—  that  there  are  several  ways  of  handling 
the  theme ;  but  there  is  no  way  of  renewing  and 
deconventionalizing  it.  No  doubt  it  has  a  long  life 


346  PLAY-MAKING 

before  it  on  the  plane  of  popular  melodrama,  but 
scarcely,  one  hopes,  on  any  higher  plane. 

Another  theme  which  ought  to  be  relegated  to 
the  theatrical  lumber-room  is  that  of  patient,  in- 
veterate revenge.  This  form  of  vindictiveness  is, 
from  a  dramatic  point  of  view,  an  outworn  pas- 
sion. It  is  too  obviously  irrational  aad  anti-social 
to  pass  muster  in  modern  costume.  The  actual 
vendetta  may  possibly  survive  in  some  semi-bar- 
barous regions,  and  Grangerfords  and  Shepherd- 
sons  (as  in  Mark  Twain's  immortal  romance)  may 
still  be  shooting  each  other  at  sight.  But  these 
things  are  relics  of  the  past;  they  do  not  belong 
to  the  normal,  typical  life  of  our  time.  It  is 
useless  to  say  that  human  nature  is  the  same  in 
all  ages.  That  is  one  of  the  facile  axioms  of 
psychological  incompetence.  Far  be  it  from  me  to 
deny  that  malice,  hatred,  spite,  and  the  spirit  of 
retaliation  are,  and  will  be  until  the  millennium, 
among  the  most  active  forces  in  human  nature. 
But  most  people  are  coming  to  recognize  that  life 
is  too  short  for  deliberate,  elaborate,  cold-drawn 
revenge.  They  will  hit  back  when  they  conven- 
iently can;  they  will  cherish  for  half  a  lifetime 
a  passive,  an  obstructive,  ill-will;  they  will  even 
await  for  years  an  opportunity  of  "  getting  their 
knife  into "  an  enemy.  But  they  have  grown 
chary  of  "  cutting  off  their  nose  to  spite  their 
face  " ;  they  will  very  rarely  sacrifice  their  own 
comfort  in  life  to  the  mere  joy  of  protracted, 
elaborate  reprisals.  Vitriol  and  the  revolver  — 


BLIND-ALLEY   THEMES  347 

an  outburst  of  rage,  culminating  in  a  "  short,  sharp 
shock  "  —  these  belong,  if  you  will,  to  modern  life. 
But  long-drawn,  unhasting,  unresting  machina- 
tion, with  no  end  in  view  beyond  an  ultimate  un- 
masking, a  turning  of  the  tables  —  in  a  word,  a 
strong  situation  —  this,  I  take  it,  belongs  to  a 
phase  of  existence  more  leisurely  than  ours.  There 
is  no  room  in  our  crowded  century  for  such  large 
and  sustained  passions.  One  could  mention  plays 
—  but  they  are  happily  forgotten  —  in  which  retri- 
bution was  delayed  for  some  thirty  or  forty  years, 
during  which  the  unconscious  object  of  it  enjoyed 
a  happy  and  prosperous  existence.  These,  no 
doubt,  are  extreme  instances;  but  cold-storage  re- 
venge, as  a  whole,  ought  to  be  as  rare  on  the 
stage  as  it  is  in  real  life.  The  serious  playwright 
will  do  well  to  leave  it  to  the  melodramatists. 

A  third  theme  to  be  handled  with  the  greatest 
caution,  if  at  all,  is  that  of  heroic  self-sacrifice. 
Not  that  self-sacrifice,  like  revenge,  is  an  outworn 
passion.  It  still  rages  in  daily  life;  but  no  audi- 
ence of  average  intelligence  will  to-day  accept  it 
with  the  uncritical  admiration  which  it  used  to 
excite  in  the  sentimental  dramas  of  last  century. 
Even  then  —  even  in  1869  —  Meilhac  and  Halevy, 
in  their  ever-memorable  Froufrou,  showed  what 
disasters  often  result  from  it;  but  it  retained  its 
prestige  with  the  average  playwright  —  and  with 
some  who  were  above  the  average  —  for  many  a 
day  after  that.  I  can  recall  a  play,  by  a  living 
English  author,  in  which  a  Colonel  in  the  Indian 


348  PLAY-MAKING 

Army  pleaded  guilty  to  a  damning  charge  of  cow- 
ardice rather  than  allow  a  lady  whom  he  chival- 
rously adored  to  learn  that  it  was  her  husband  who 
was  the  real  coward  and  traitor.  He  knew  that 
the  lady  detested  her  husband ;  he  knew  that  they 
had  no  children  to  suffer  by  the  husband's  dis- 
grace; he  knew  that  there  was  a  quite  probable 
way  by  which  he  might  have  cleared  his  own 
character  without  casting  any  imputation  on  the 
other  man.  But  in  a  sheer  frenzy  of  self-sacrifice 
he  blasted  his  own  career,  and  thereby  inflicted  far 
greater  pain  upon  the  woman  he  loved  than  if  he 
had  told  the  truth  or  suffered  it  to  be  told.  And 
twenty  years  afterwards,  when  the  villain  was 
dead,  the  hero  still  resolutely  refused  to  clear  his 
own  character,  lest  the  villain's  widow  should  learn 
the  truth  about  her  wholly  unlamented  husband. 
This  was  an  extravagant  and  childish  case;  but 
the  superstition  of  heroic  self-sacrifice  still  lingers 
in  certain  quarters,  and  cannot  be  too  soon  eradi- 
cated. I  do  not  mean,  of  course,  that  self-sacrifice 
is  never  admirable,  but  only  that  it  can  no  longer 
be  accepted  as  a  thing  inherently  noble,  apart  from 
its  circumstances  and  its  consequences.  An  excel- 
lent play  might  be  written  with  the  express  design 
of  placing  the  ethics  of  self-sacrifice  in  their  true 
light.  Perhaps  the  upshot  might  be  the  recog- 
nition of  the  simple  principle  that  it  is  immoral  to 
make  a  sacrifice  which  the  person  supposed  to  bene- 
fit by  it  has  no  right  to  accept. 

Another  motive  against  which  it  is  perhaps  not 


BLIND-ALLEY    THEMES  349 

quite  superfluous  to  warn  the  aspiring  playwright 
is  the  "  voix  du  sang."  It  is  only  a  few  years 
since  this  miraculous  voice  was  heard  speaking 
loud  and  long  in  His  Majesty's  Theatre,  London, 
and  in  a  play  by  a  no  less  modern-minded  author 
than  the  late  Clyde  Fitch.  It  was  called  The  Last 
of  the  Dandies?  and  its  hero  was  Count  D'Orsay. 
At  a  given  moment,  D'Orsay  learned  that  a  young 
man  known  as  Lord  Raoul  Ardale  was  in  reality 
his  son.  Instantly  the  man  of  the  world,  the  squire 
of  dames,  went  off  into  a  deliquium  of  tender  emo- 
tion. For  "  my  bo-o-oy  "  he  would  do  anything 
and  everything.  He  would  go  down  to  Crock- 
ford's  and  win  a  pot  of  money  to  pay  "  my  boy's  " 
debts  —  Fortune  could  not  but  be  kind  to  a  doting 
parent.  In  the  beautiful  simplicity  of  his  soul,  he 
looked  forward  with  eager  delight  to  telling  Raoul 
that  the  mother  he  adored  was  no  better  than  she 
should  be,  and  that  he  had  no  right  to  his  name 
or  title.  Not  for  a  moment  did  he  doubt  that 
the  young  man  would  share  his  transports.  When 
the  mother  opposed  his  purpose  of  betraying  her 
secret,  he  wept  with  disappointment.  "  All  day," 
he  said,  "  I  have  been  saying  to  myself :  When  that 
sun  sets,  I  shall  hear  him  say,  '  Good-night, 
Father ! '  He  postulated  in  so  many  words  the 
"  voix  du  sang,"  trusting  that,  even  if  the  reve- 
lation were  not  formally  made,  "  Nature  would 

1  I  am  not  sure  what  was  the  precise  relationship  of  this 
play  to  the  same  author's  Beau  Brummel.  D'Orsay's  death 
scene  was  certainly  a  repetition  of  Brummel's. 


350  PLAY-MAKING 

send  the  boy  some  impulse  "  of  filial  affection.  It 
is  hard  to  believe  —  but  it  is  the  fact  —  that,  well 
within  the  present  century,  such  ingenuous  non- 
sense as  this  was  gravely  presented  to  the  public 
of  a  leading  theatre,  by  an  author  of  keen  intelli- 
gence, who,  but  for  an  unhappy  accident,  would 
now  be  at  the  zenith  of  his  career.  There  are 
few  more  foolish  conventions  than  that  of  the 
"  voix  du  sang."  Perhaps,  however,  the  rising 
generation  of  playwrights  has  more  need  to  be 
warned  against  the  opposite  or  Shawesque  conven- 
tion, that  kinship  utters  itself  mainly  in  wrangling 
and  mutual  dislike. 

Among  inherently  feeble  and  greatly  overdone 
expedients  may  be  reckoned  the  oath  or  promise 
of  secrecy,  exacted  for  no  sufficient  reason,  and 
kept  in  defiance  of  common  sense  and  common 
humanity.  Lord  Windermere's  conduct  in  Oscar 
Wilde's  play  is  a  case  in  point,  though  he  has  not 
even  an  oath  to  excuse  his  insensate  secretiveness. 
A  still  clearer  instance  is  afforded  by  Clyde  Fitch's 
play  The  Girl  with  the  Green  Eyes.  In  other  re- 
spects a  very  able  play,  it  is  vitiated  by  the  cer- 
tainty that  Austin  ought  to  have,  and  would  have, 
told  the  truth  ten  times  over,  rather  than  subject 
his  wife's  jealous  disposition  to  the  strain  he  puts 
upon  it. 

It  would  not  be  difficult  to  prolong  this  catalogue 
of  themes  and  motives  that  have  come  down  in 
the  world,  and  are  no  longer  presentable  in  any 
society  that  pretends  to  intelligence.  But  it  is 


BLIND-ALLEY    THEMES  351 

needless  to  enter  into  further  details.  There  is 
a  general  rule,  of  sovereign  efficacity,  for  avoiding 
such  anachronisms:  "Go  to  life  for  your  themes, 
and  not  to  the  theatre."  Observe  that  rule,  and 
you  are  safe.  But  it  is  easier  said  than  done. 


XXI 
THE  FULL  CLOSE 

IN  an  earlier  chapter,  I  have  tried  to  show  that  a 
certain  tolerance  for  anticlimax,  for  a  fourth  or 
fifth  act  of  calm  after  the  storm  of  the  penultimate 
act,  is  consonant  with  right  reason,  and  is  a  practi- 
cally inevitable  result  of  a  really  intimate  relation 
between  drama  and  life.  But  it  would  be  a  com- 
plete misunderstanding  of  my  argument  to  sup- 
pose that  I  deny  the  practical,  and  even  the  artistic, 
superiority  of  those  themes  in  which  the  tension 
can  be  maintained  and  heightened  to  the  very  end. 
The  fact  that  tragedy  has  from  of  old  been 
recognized  as  a  higher  form  than  comedy  is  partly 
due,  no  doubt,  to  the  tragic  poet's  traditional  right 
to  round  off  a  human  destiny  in  death.  "  Call  no 
man  happy  till  his  life  be  ended,"  said  Sophocles, 
quoting  from  an  earlier  sage;  and  it  needed  no 
profundity  of  wisdom  to  recognize  in  the  "  happy 
ending "  of  comedy  a  conventional,  ephemeral 
thing.  But  when,  after  all  the  peripeties  of  life, 
the  hero  "  home  has  gone  and  ta'en  his  wages,"  we 
feel  that,  at  any  rate,  we  have  looked  destiny 
squarely  in  the  face,  without  evasion  or  subter- 
fuge. Perhaps  the  true  justification  of  tragedy  as 

352 


THE    FULL    CLOSE  353 

a  form  of  art  is  that,  after  this  experience,  we 
should  feel  life  to  be,  not  less  worth  living,  but 
greater  and  more  significant  than  before. 

This  is  no  place,  however,  for  a  discussion  of 
the  aesthetic  basis  of  tragedy  in  general.1  What  is 
here  required,  from  the  point  of  view  of  crafts- 
manship, is  not  so  much  a  glorification  of  the  tragic 
ending,  as  a  warning  against  its  facile  misuse.  A 
very  great  play  may,  and  often  must,  end  in  death ; 
but  you  cannot  make  a  play  great  by  simply  killing 
off  your  protagonist.  Death  is,  after  all,  a  very  in- 
expensive means  of  avoiding  anticlimax.  Tension, 
as  we  saw,  is  symbolized  in  the  sword  of  Damocles ; 
and  it  can  always  be  maintained,  in  a  mechanical 
way,  by  letting  your  hero  play  about  with  a  re- 
volver, or  placing  an  overdose  of  chloral  well 
within  your  heroine's  reach.  At  the  time  when  the 
English  drama  was  awaking  from  the  lethargy 
of  the  'seventies,  an  idea  got  abroad  that  a  non- 
sanguinary  ending  was  always  and  necessarily  in- 
artistic, and  that  a  self-respecting  playwright  must 
at  all  hazards  kill  somebody  before  dropping  his 
curtain.  This  was  an  extravagant  reaction  against 
the  purely  commercial  principle  that  the  public 
would  not,  on  any  terms,  accept  a  tragic  ending. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  mortality  was  not  very 
great;  for  managers  were  resolute  in  the  old 
belief,  and  few  dramatists  had  the  courage  or 

1  The  reader  who  wishes  to  pursue  the  theme  may  do  so 
to  excellent  advantage  in  Professor  Bradley's  Shakespearean 
Tragedy. 


354  PLAY-MAKING 

authority  to  stand  up  against  them.  But  I  have 
often  heard  playwrights  lamenting  their  inability 
to  massacre  the  luckless  children  of  their  fancy, 
who,  nine  times  out  of  ten,  had  done  nothing 
to  incur  such  a  doom.  The  real  trouble  was  that 
death  seemed  to  be  the  only  method  of  avoiding 
anticlimax. 

It  is  a  very  sound  rule  that,  before  you  deter- 
mine to  write  a  tragedy,  you  should  make  sure  that 
you  have  a  really  tragic  theme :  that  you  can  place 
your  hero  at  such  odds  with  life  that  reconciliation, 
or  mere  endurance,  would  be  morally  base  or 
psychologically  improbable.  Moreover,  you  must 
strike  deep  into  character  before  you  are  justified 
in  passing  capital  sentence  on  your  personages. 
Death  is  a  disproportionate  close  for  a  common- 
place and  superficially-studied  life.  It  is  true  that 
quite  commonplace  people  do  die;  indeed,  they 
preponderate  in  the  bills  of  mortality;  but  death 
on  the  stage  confers  a  sort  of  distinction  which 
ought  not  to  be  accorded  without  due  and  sufficient 
cause.  To  one  god  in  particular  we  may  apply 
the  Horatian  maxim,  "  Nee  deus  intersit,  nisi 
dignus  vindice  nodus." 

In  German  aesthetic  theory,  the  conception  of 
tragische  Schuld  —  "  tragic  guilt  "  —  plays  a  large 
part.  It  descends,  no  doubt,  from  the  Aristotelian 
maxim  that  a  tragic  hero  must  neither  be  too  good 
nor  too  bad;  but  it  also  belongs  to  a  moralizing 
conception,  which  tacitly  or  explicitly  assumes  that 
the  dramatist's  aim  ought  to  be  "  to  justify  the 


THE    FULL   CLOSE  355 

ways  of  God  to  man."  In  these  days  we  look  at 
drama  more  objectively,  and  do  not  insist  on  de- 
ciding in  what  degree  a  man  has  deserved  death, 
if  only  we  feel  that  he  has  necessarily  or  probably 
incurred  it.  But  in  order  that  we  may  be  satisfied 
of  this,  we  must  know  him  intimately  and  feel 
with  him  intensely.  We  must,  in  other  words, 
believe  that  he  dies  because  he  cannot  live,  and  not 
merely  to  suit  the  playwright's  convenience  and 
help  him  to  an  effective  "  curtain." 

As  we  review  the  series  of  Ibsen's  modern  plays, 
we  cannot  but  feel  that,  though  he  did  not  shrink 
from  death,  he  never  employed  it,  except  perhaps 
in  his  last  melancholy  effort,  as  a  mere  way  of 
escape  from  a  difficulty.  In  five  out  of  his  thir- 
teen modern  plays,  no  one  dies  at  all.1  One  might 
even  say  six:  for  Oswald,  in  Ghosts,  may  live 
for  years;  but  I  hold  it  as  only  fair  to  count  the 
death  of  his  mind  as  more  than  equivalent  to 
bodily  death.  Solness,  on  the  plane  of  literal  fact, 
dies  by  an  accident;  on  the  plane  of  symbolic  in- 
terpretation, he  dies  of  the  over-great  demands 
which  Hilda  makes  upon  his  "  sickly  conscience." 
Little  Eyolf's  death  can  also  be  regarded  from  a 
symbolic  point  of  view ;  but  there  is  no  substantial 
reason  to  think  of  it  otherwise  than  as  an  acci- 
dent. John  Gabriel  Borkman  dies  of  heart  seizure, 
resulting  from  sudden  exposure  to  extreme  cold. 

1  It  is  true  that  in  A  Dolfs  House,  Dr.  Rank  announces 
his  approaching  demise :  but  he  does  not  actually  die,  nor 
is  his  fate  an  essential  part  of  the  action  of  the  play. 


356  PLAY-MAKING 

In  the  case  of  Solness  and  Borkman,  death  is  a 
quite  natural  and  probable  result  of  the  antecedent 
conditions;  and  in  the  case  of  Eyolf,  it  is  not 
a  way  out  of  the  action,  but  rather  the  way  into 
it.  There  remain  the  three  cases  of  suicide: 
Rebecca  and  Rosmer,  Hedda  Gabler,  and  Hedvig. 
I  have  already,  in  Chapter  XIX,  shown  how  the 
death  of  Rebecca  was  the  inevitable  outcome  of 
the  situation  —  the  one  conclusive  proof  of  her 
"  ennoblement  "  —  and  how  it  was  almost  equally 
inevitable  that  Rosmer  should  accompany  her  to 
her  end.  Hedda  Gabler  was  constitutionally  fated 
to  suicide:  a  woman  of  low  vitality,  overmastering 
egoism,  and  acute  supersensitiveness,  placed  in  a 
predicament  which  left  her  nothing  to  expect  from 
life  but  tedium  and  humiliation.  The  one  case 
left  —  that  of  Hedvig  —  is  the  only  one  in  which 
Ibsen  can  possibly  be  accused  of  wanton  bloodshed. 
Bjornson,  in  a  very  moving  passage  in  his  novel, 
The  Paths  of  God,  did  actually,  though  indirectly, 
make  that  accusation.  Certainly,  there  is  no  more 
heartrending  incident  in  fiction;  and  certainly  it 
is  a  thing  that  only  consummate  genius  can  justify. 
Ibsen  happened  to  possess  that  genius,  and  I  am 
not  far  from  agreeing  with  those  who  hold  The 
Wild  Duck  to  be  his  greatest  work.  But  for  play- 
wrights who  are  tempted  to  seek  for  effects  of 
pathos  by  similar  means,  one  may  without  hesi- 
tation lay  down  this  maxim :  Be  sure  you  are  an 
Ibsen  before  you  kill  your  Hedvig. 

This  analysis  of  Ibsen's  practice  points  to  the 


THE    FULL    CLOSE  357 

fact  —  for  such  I  believe  it  to  be  —  that  what  the 
modern  playwright  has  chiefly  to  guard  against 
is  the  temptation  to  overdo  suicide  as  a  means  of 
cutting  the  dramatic  knot.  In  France  and  Ger- 
many there  is  another  temptation,  that  of  the  duel ; * 
but  in  Anglo-Saxon  countries  it  scarcely  presents 
itself.  Death,  other  than  self-inflicted,  is  much 
less  tempting,  and  less  apt  to  be  resorted  to  in 
and  out  of  season.  The  heroine,  whether  virtuous 
or  erring,  who  dies  of  consumption,  has  gone 
greatly  out  of  vogue.  A  broken  heart  is  no  longer 
held  to  be  necessarily  fatal.  The  veriest  tyro 
realizes  that  death  by  crude  accident  is  inadmissible 
as  a  determining  factor  in  serious  drama;  and 
murder  is  practically  (though  not  absolutely)  rele- 
gated to  the  melodramatic  domain.  The  one  ur- 

1  The  duel,  even  in  countries  whose  customs  permit  of 
it,  is  essentially  an  inartistic  end ;  for  it  leaves  the  catas- 
trophe to  be  decided  either  by  Chance  or  Providence  —  two 
equally  inadmissible  arbiters  in  modern  drama.  Alexandre 
Dumas  fils,  in  his  preface  to  Helo'ise  Paranquet,  condemns 
the  duel  as  a  dramatic  expedient.  "  Not  to  mention,"  he 
says,  "  the  fact  that  it  has  been  much  overdone,  we  are 
bound  to  recognize  that  Providence,  in  a  fit  of  absence  of 
mind,  sometimes  suffers  the  rascal  to  kill  the  honest  man. 
Let  me  recommend  my  young  colleagues,"  he  proceeds, 
"  never  to  end  a  piece  which  pretends  to  reproduce  a  phase 
of  real  life,  by  an  intervention  of  chance."  The  recom- 
mendation came  rather  oddly  from  the  dramatist  who,  in 
L'Etrangtre,  had  disposed  of  his  "  vibrion,"  the  Due  de  Sept- 
rnonts,  by  making  Clarkson  kill  him  in  a  duel.  Perhaps  he 
did  not  reckon  L'Etrangtre  as  pretending  to  reproduce  a 
phase  of  real  life.  A  duel  is,  of  course,  perfectly  admissible 
in  a  French  or  German  play,  simply  as  part  of  a  picture  of 
manners.  Its  stupid  inconclusiveness  may  be  the  very  point 
to  be  illustrated.  It  is  only  when  represented  as  a  moral 
arbitrament  that  it  becomes  an  anachronism. 


358  PLAY-MAKING 

gent  question,  then,  is  that  of  the  artistic  use  and 
abuse  of  suicide. 

The  principle  is  pretty  plain,  I  think,  that  it 
ought  to  be  the  artist's,  as  it  is  the  man's,  last 
resort.  We  know  that,  in  most  civilized  countries, 
suicide  is  greatly  on  the  increase.  It  cannot  be 
called  an  infrequent  incident  in  daily  life.  It  is 
certain,  too,  that  the  motives  impelling  to  it  are 
apt  to  be  of  a  dramatic  nature,  and  therefore  suited 
to  the  playwright's  purposes.  But  it  is,  on  the 
other  hand,  such  a  crude  and  unreasoning  means 
of  exit  from  the  tangle  of  existence  that  a  play- 
wright of  delicate  instincts  will  certainly  employ 
it  only  under  the  strongest  compulsion  from  his 
artistic  conscience. 

Sir  Arthur  Pinero  has  three  suicides  on  his 
record,  though  one  of  them  was,  so  to  speak,  nipped 
in  the  bud.  In  The  Profligate,  as  presented  on  the 
stage,  Dunstan  Renshaw  changed  his  mind  before 
draining  the  fatal  goblet;  and  in  this  case  the 
stage  version  was  surely  the  right  one.  The  sui- 
cide, to  which  the  author  still  clings  in  the  printed 
text,  practically  dates  the  play  as  belonging  to 
the  above-mentioned  period  of  rebellion  against 
the  conventional  "  happy  ending,"  when  the  am- 
bitious British  dramatist  felt  that  honour  required 
him  to  kill  his  man  on  the  smallest  provocation.1 
Nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century  has  passed  since 

1  I  am  glad  to  see,  from  Mr.  Malcolm  Salaman's  intro- 
duction to  the  printed  play,  that,  even  in  those  days  of  our 
hot  youth,  my  own  aesthetic  principles  were  less  truculent 


THE    FULL   CLOSE  359 

then,  and  the  disproportion  between  such  a  play 
and  such  a  catastrophe  is  now  apparent  to  every 
one.  It  is  not  that  we  judge  Renshaw's  delin- 
quencies to  be  over-punished  by  death  —  that  is 
not  the  question.  The  fact  is  simply  that  the  char- 
acters are  not  large  enough,  true  enough,  living 
enough  —  that  the  play  does  not  probe  deep 
enough  into  human  experience  —  to  make  the  au- 
gust intervention  of  death  seem  other  than  an 
incongruity.  The  suicide  of  Paula  Tanqueray, 
though  it,  too,  has  been  much  criticized,  is  a  very 
different  matter.  Inevitable  it  cannot  be  called: 
if  the  play  had  been  written  within  the  past  ten 
years,  Sir  Arthur  would  very  likely  have  con- 
trived to  do  without  it.  But  it  is,  in  itself,  prob- 
able enough :  both  the  good  and  the  bad  in  Paula's 
character  might  easily  make  her  feel  that  only 
the  dregs  of  life  remained  to  her,  and  they  not 
worth  drinking.  The  worst  one  can  say  of  it  is 
that  it  sins  against  the  canon  of  practical  con- 
venience which  enjoins  on  the  prudent  dramatist 
strict  economy  in  suicide.  The  third  case,  Zoe 
Blundell's  leap  to  nothingness,  in  that  harsh  and 
ruthless  masterpiece,  Mid-Channel,  is  as  inevitable 
as  anything  can  well  be  in  human  destiny.  Zoe  has 
made  a  miserable  and  hopeless  muddle  of  her  life. 
In  spite  of  her  goodness  of  heart,  she  has  no  inter- 
ests and  no  ideals,  apart  from  the  personal  satis- 
factions which  have  now  been  poisoned  at  their 
source.  She  has  intervened  disastrously  in  the 
destinies  of  others.  She  is  ill;  her  nerves  are  all 


360  PLAY-MAKING 

on  edge;  and  she  is,  as  it  were,  driven  into  a 
corner,  from  which  there  is  but  one  easy  and  rapid 
exit.  Here  is  a  case,  if  ever  there  was  one,  where 
the  end  is  imposed  upon  the  artist  by  the  whole 
drift  of  his  action.  It  may  be  said  that  chance 
plays  a  large  part  in  the  concatenation  of  events 
—  that,  for  instance,  if  Leonard  Ferris  had  not 
happened  to  live  at  the  top  of  a  very  high  build- 
ing, Zoe  would  not  have  encountered  the  sudden 
temptation  to  which  she  yields.  But  this,  as  I  have 
tried  to  show  above,  is  a  baseless  complaint. 
Chance  is  a  constant  factor  in  life,  now  aiding,  now 
thwarting,  the  will.  To  eliminate  it  altogether 
would  be  to  produce  a  most  unlifelike  world.  It 
is  only  when  the  playwright  so  manipulates  and 
reduplicates  chance  as  to  make  it  seem  no  longer 
chance,  but  purposeful  arrangement,  that  we  have 
the  right  to  protest. 

Another  instance  of  indisputably  justified  sui- 
cide may  be  found  in  Mr.  Galsworthy's  Justice. 
The  whole  theme  of  the  play  is  nothing  but  the 
hounding  to  his  end  of  a  luckless  youth,  who  has 
got  on  the  wrong  side  of  the  law,  and  finds  all 
the  forces  of  society  leagued  against  him.  In  Mr. 
Granville  Barker's  Waste,  the  artistic  justification 
for  Trebell's  self-effacement  is  less  clear  and  com- 
pulsive. It  is  true  that  the  play  was  suggested 
by  the  actual  suicide,  not  of  a  politician,  but  of 
a  soldier,  who  found  his  career  ruined  by  some 
pitiful  scandal.  But  the  author  has  made  no  at- 
tempt to  reproduce  the  actual  circumstances  of  that 


THE    FULL    CLOSE  361 

case;  and  even  if  he  had  reproduced  the  external 
circumstances,  the  psychological  conditions  would 
clearly  have  eluded  him.  Thus  the  appeal  to  fact 
is,  as  it  always  must  be,  barred.  In  two  cases, 
indeed,  much  more  closely  analogous  to  Trebell's 
than  that  which  actually  suggested  it  —  two  fa- 
mous cases  in  which  a  scandal  cut  short  a  brilliant 
political  career  —  suicide  played  no  part  in  the 
catastrophe.  These  real-life  instances  are,  I  repeat, 
irrelevant.  The  only  question  is  whether  Mr. 
Barker  has  made  us  feel  that  a  man  of  Trebell's 
character  would  certainly  not  survive  the  paralyz- 
ing of  his  energies ;  and  that  question  every  spec- 
tator must  answer  for  himself.  I  am  far  from 
answering  it  in  the  negative.  I  merely  suggest 
that  the  playwright  may  one  day  come  across  a 
theme  for  which  there  is  no  conceivable  ending 
but  suicide,  and  may  wish  that  he  had  let  Trebell 
live,  lest  people  should  come  to  regard  him  as  a 
spendthrift  of  self -slaughter. 

The  suicide  which  brings  to  a  close  Mr.  Clyde 
Fitch's  very  able  play,  The  Climbers,  stands  on  a 
somewhat  different  level.  Here  it  is  not  the  pro- 
tagonist who  makes  away  with  himself,  nor  is  his 
destiny  the  main  theme  of  the  play.  Mr.  Fitch 
has  painted  a  broad  social  picture,  in  which,  if 
there  is  any  concentration  of  interest,  it  is  upon 
Blanche  and  Warden.  Sterling's  suicide,  then, 
though  it  does  in  fact  cut  the  chief  knot  of  the 
play,  is  to  be  regarded  rather  as  a  characteristic 
and  probable  incident  of  a  certain  phase  of  life, 


362  PLAY-MAKING 

than  as  the  culmination  of  a  spiritual  tragedy.  It 
has  not  the  artistic  significance,  either  good  or  bad, 
that  it  would  have  if  the  character  and  destiny  of 
Sterling  were  our  main  concernment. 

The  happy  playwright,  one  may  say,  is  he  whose 
theme  does  not  force  upon  him  either  a  sanguinary 
or  a  tame  last  act,  but  enables  him,  without  troub- 
ling the  coroner,  to  sustain  and  increase  the  ten- 
sion up  to  the  very  close.  Such  themes  are  not  too 
common,  but  they  do  occur.  Dumas  found  one  in 
Denise,  and  another  in  Francillon,  where  the 
famous  "  II  en  a  menti ! "  comes  within  two  min- 
utes of  the  fall  of  the  curtain.  In  Heimat 
(Magda)  and  in  Johannisfeuer,  Sudermann  keeps 
the  tension  at  its  height  up  to  the  fall  of  the  cur- 
tain. Sir  Arthur  Pinero's  Iris  is  a  case  in  point; 
so  are  Mr.  Shaw's  Candida  and  The  Devil's  Dis- 
ciple; so  is  Mr.  Galsworthy's  Strife.  Other  in- 
stances will  no  doubt  occur  to  the  reader;  yet  he 
will  probably  be  surprised  to  find  that  it  is  not 
very  easy  to  recall  them. 

For  this  is  not,  in  fact,  the  typical  modern 
formula.  In  plays  which  do  not  end  in  death,  it 
will  generally  be  found  that  the  culminating  scene 
occurs  in  the  penultimate  act,  and  that,  if  anti- 
climax is  avoided,  it  is  not  by  the  maintenance  of 
an  unbroken  tension,  by  its  skilful  renewal  and 
reinforcement  in  the  last  act.  This  is  a  resource 
which  the  playwright  will  do  well  to  bear  in  mind. 
Where  he  cannot  place  his  "  great  scene  "  in  his 


THE    FULL   CLOSE  363 

last  act,  he  should  always  consider  whether  it  be 
not  possible  to  hold  some  development  in  reserve 
whereby  the  tension  may  be  screwed  up  again  — 
if  unexpectedly,  so  much  the  better.  Some  of 
the  most  successful  plays  within  my  recollection 
have  been  those  in  which  the  last  act  came  upon 
us  as  a  pleasant  surprise.  An  anticlimax  had 
seemed  inevitable;  and  behold!  the  author  had 
found  a  way  out  of  it. 

An  Enemy  of  the  People  may  perhaps  be  placed 
in  this  class,  though,  as  before  remarked,  the  last 
act  is  almost  an  independent  comedy.  Had  the 
play  ended  with  the  fourth  act,  no  one  would  have 
felt  that  anything  was  lacking;  so  that  in  his 
fifth  act,  Ibsen  was  not  so  much  grappling  with 
an  urgent  technical  problem,  as  amusing  himself 
by  wringing  the  last  drop  of  humour  out  of  the 
given  situation.  A  more  strictly  apposite  example 
may  be  found  in  Sir  Arthur  Pinero's  play,  His 
House  in  Order.  Here  the  action  undoubtedly 
culminates  in  the  great  scene  between  Nina  and 
Hilary  Jesson  in  the  third  act;  yet  we  await  with 
eager  anticipation  the  discomfiture  of  the  Ridgeley 
family;  and  when  we  realize  that  it  is  to  be 
brought  about  by  the  disclosure  to  Filmer  of  Anna- 
bel's secret,  the  manifest  Tightness  of  the  pro- 
ceeding gives  us  a  little  shock  of  pleasure.  Mr. 
Somerset  Maugham,  again,  in  the  last  act  of 
Grace,  employs  an  ingenious  device  to  keep  the 
tension  at  a  high  pitch.  The  matter  of  the  act 
consists  mainly  of  a  debate  as  to  whether  Grace 


364  PLAY-MAKING 

Insole  ought,  or  ought  not,  to  make  a  certain 
painful  avowal  to  her  husband.  As  the  negative 
opinion  was  to  carry  the  day,  Mr.  Maugham  saw 
that  there  was  grave  danger  that  the  final  scene 
might  appear  an  almost  ludicrous  anticlimax.  To 
obviate  this,  he  made  Grace,  at  the  beginning  of 
the  act,  write  a  letter  of  confession,  and  address 
it  to  Claude ;  so  that  all  through  the  discussion  we 
had  at  the  back  of  our  mind  the  question  "  Will 
the  letter  reach  his  hands?  Will  the  sword  of 
Damocles  fall?  "  This  may  seem  like  a  leaf  from 
the  book  of  Sardou;  but  in  reality  it  was  a  per- 
fectly natural  and  justified  expedient.  It  kept 
the  tension  alive  throughout  a  scene  of  ethical  dis- 
cussion, interesting  in  itself,  but  pretty  clearly  des- 
tined to  lead  up  to  the  undramatic  alternative  —  a 
policy  of  silence  and  inaction.  Mr.  Clyde  Fitch, 
in  the  last  act  of  The  Truth,  made  an  elaborate 
and  daring  endeavour  to  relieve  the  mawkishness 
of  the  clearly- foreseen  reconciliation  between  War- 
der and  Becky.  He  let  Becky  fall  in  with  her 
father's  mad  idea  of  working  upon  Warder's  com- 
passion by  pretending  that  she  had  tried  to  kill 
herself.  Only  at  the  last  moment  did  she  abandon 
the  sordid  comedy,  and  so  prove  herself  (as  we 
are  asked  to  suppose)  cured  for  ever  of  the  habit 
of  fibbing.  Mr.  Fitch  here  showed  good  technical 
insight  marred  by  over-hasty  execution.  That 
Becky  should  be  tempted  to  employ  her  old 
methods,  and  should  overcome  the  temptation,  was 
entirely  right;  but  the  actual  deception  attempted 


THE    FULL    CLOSE  365 

was  so  crude  and  hopeless  that  there  was  no  plausi- 
bility in  her  consenting  to  it,  and  no  merit  in  her 
desisting  from  it. 

In  light  comedy  and  farce  it  is  even  more  de- 
sirable than  in  serious  drama  to  avoid  a  tame  and 
perfunctory  last  act.  Very  often  a  seemingly 
trivial  invention  will  work  wonders  in  keeping 
the  interest  afoot.  In  Mr.  Anstey's  delightful 
farce,  The  Brass  Bottle,  one  looked  forward  rather 
dolefully  to  a  flat  conclusion;  but  by  the  simple 
device  of  letting  the  Jinny  omit  to  include  Pringle 
in  his  "  act  of  oblivion,"  the  author  is  enabled  to 
make  his  last  scene  quite  as  amusing  as  any  of  its 
predecessors.  Mr.  Arnold  Bennett,  in  The  Honey- 
moon, had  the  audacity  to  play  a  deliberate  trick 
on  the  audience,  in  order  to  evade  an  anticlimax. 
Seeing  that  his  third  act  could  not  at  best  be  very 
good,  he  purposely  put  the  audience  on  a  false 
scent,  made  it  expect  an  absolutely  commonplace 
ending  (the  marriage  of  Flora  to  Charles  Haslam), 
and  then  substituted  one  which,  if  not  very  bril- 
liant, was  at  least  ingenious  and  unforeseen.  Thus, 
by  defeating  the  expectation  of  a  superlatively  bad 
act,  he  made  a  positively  insignificant  act  seem 
comparatively  good.  Such  feats  of  craftsmanship 
are  entertaining,  but  too  dangerous  to  be  com- 
mended for  imitation. 

In  some  modern  plays  a  full  close  is  achieved 
by  the  simple  expedient  of  altogether  omitting 
the  last  act,  or  last  scene,  and  leaving  the  end  of 
the  play  to  the  imagination.  This  method  is  boldly 


366  PLAY-MAKING 

and  (I  understand)  successfully  employed  by  Mr. 
Edward  Sheldon  in  his  powerful  play,  The  Nigger. 
Philip  Morrow,  the  popular  Governor  of  one  of 
the  Southern  States,  has  learnt  that  his  grand- 
mother was  a  quadroon,  and  that  consequently 
he  has  in  him  a  much-attenuated  strain  of  African 
blood.  In  the  Southern  States,  attenuation  mat- 
ters nothing:  if  the  remotest  filament  of  a  man's 
ancestry  runs  back  to  Africa,  he  is  "  a  nigger  all 
right."  Philip  has  just  suppressed  a  race-riot  in 
the  city,  and,  from  the  balcony  of  the  State  Capitol, 
is  to  address  the  troops  who  have  aided  him, 
and  the  assembled  multitude.  Having  resolutely 
parted  from  the  woman  he  adores,  but  can  no 
longer  marry,  he  steps  out  upon  the  balcony  to 
announce  that  he  is  a  negro,  that  he  resigns  the 
Governorship,  and  that  henceforth  he  casts  in  his 
lot  with  his  black  brethren.  The  stage-direction 
runs  thus  — 

The  afternoon  sun  strikes  his  figure.  At  his  ap- 
pearance a  shout  goes  up  —  long,  steady,  enthusiastic 
cheering;  and,  after  a  moment,  the  big  regimental 
band  begins  playing,  very  slowly,  "  My  Country,  't  is 
of  Thee."  .  .  .  All  the  people  in  the  room  are  smil- 
ing and  applauding  enthusiastically;  and  —  as  Phil 
in  vain  raises  his  hand  for  silence,  and  the  band 
crashes  through  the  National  Anthem,  and  the  roar 
of  voices  still  rises  from  below  — 

THE   CURTAIN    FALLS. 

One  does  not  know  whether  to  praise  Mr.  Sheldon 
for  having  adroitly  avoided  an  anticlimax,  or  to 


THE    FULL    CLOSE  367 

reproach  him  with  having  unblushingly  shirked  a 
difficulty.  To  my  sense,  the  play  has  somewhat 
the  air  of  a  hexameter  line  with  the  spondee  cut 
off.1  One  does  want  to  see  the  peripety  through. 
But  if  the  audience  is  content  to  imagine  the 
sequel,  Mr.  Sheldon's  craftsmanship  is  justified, 
and  there  is  no  more  to  be  said. 

M.  Brieux  experienced  some  difficulty  in  bring- 
ing his  early  play,  Blanchette,  to  a  satisfactory 
close.  The  third  act  which  he  originally  wrote 
was  found  unendurably  cynical ;  a  more  agreeable 
third  act  was  condemned  as  an  anticlimax;  and 
for  some  time  the  play  was  presented  with  no 
third  act  at  all.  It  did  not  end,  but  simply  left 
off.  No  doubt  it  is  better  that  a  play  should 
stop  in  the  middle  than  that  it  should  drag  on 
tediously  and  ineffectually.  But  it  would  be  foolish 
to  make  a  system  of  such  an  expedient.  It  is,  after 
all,  an  evasion,  not  a  solution,  of  the  artist's 
problem. 

An  incident  which  occurred  during  the  rehearsals 
for  the  first  production  of  A  Doll's  House,  at  the 
Novelty  Theatre,  London,  illustrates  the  difference 
between  the  old,  and  what  was  then  the  new, 

1  This  image  is  sometimes  suggested  by  an  act-ending 
which  leaves  a  marked  situation  obviously  unresolved.  The 
curtain  should  never  be  dropped  at  such  a  point  as  to  leave 
the  characters  in  a  physical  or  mental  attitude  which  cannot 
last  for  more  than  a  moment,  and  must  certainly  be  fol- 
lowed, then  and  there,  by  important  developments.  In  other 
words,  a  situation  ought  not  to  be  cut  short  at  the  very 
height  of  its  tension,  but  only  when  it  has  reached  a  point 
of  —  at  any  rate  momentary  —  relaxation. 


368  PLAY-MAKING 

fashion  of  ending  a  play.  The  business  manager 
of  the  company,  a  man  of  ripe  theatrical  experi- 
ence, happened  to  be  present  one  day  when  Miss 
Achurch  and  Mr.  Waring  were  rehearsing  the 
last  great  scene  between  Nora  and  Helmar.  At  the 
end  of  it,  he  came  up  to  me,  in  a  state  of  high 
excitement.  "  This  is  a  fine  play !  "  he  said.  "  This 
is  sure  to  be  a  big  thing !  "  I  was  greatly  pleased. 
"  If  this  scene,  of  all  others,"  I  thought,  "  carries 
a  man  like  Mr.  Smith  off  his  feet,  it  cannot  fail 
to  hold  the  British  public."  But  I  was  somewhat 
dashed  when,  a  day  or  two  later,  Mr.  Smith  came 
up  to  me  again,  in  much  less  buoyant  spirits. 
"  I  made  a  mistake  about  that  scene,"  he  said. 
"They  tell  me  it's  the  end  of  the  last  act  —  I 
thought  it  was  the  end  of  the  first ! " 


BOOK  V 
EPILOGUE 


XXII 

CHARACTER  AND  PSYCHOLOGY 

FOR  the  invention  and  ordering  of  incident  it 
is  possible,  if  not  to  lay  down  rules,  at  any 
rate  to  make  plausible  recommendations;  but  the 
power  to  observe,  to  penetrate*,  and  to  reproduce 
character  can  neither  be  acquired  nor  regulated  by 
theoretical  recommendations.  Indirectly,  of  course, 
all  the  technical  discussions  of  the  previous  chap- 
ters tend,  or  ought  to  tend,  towards  the  effective 
presentment  of  character;  for  construction,  in 
drama  of  any  intellectual  quality,  has  no  other 
end.  But  specific  directions  for  character-drawing 
would  be  like  rules  for  becoming  six  feet  high. 
Either  you  have  it  in  you,  or  you  have  it  not. 

Under  the  heading  of  character,  however,  two 
points  arise  which  may  be  worth  a  brief  discussion : 
first,  ought  we  always  to  aim  at  development  in 
character?  second,  what  do  we,  or  ought  we  to, 
mean  by  "  psychology  "  ? 

It  is  a  frequent  critical  complaint  that  in  such- 
and-such  a  character  there  is  "  no  development " : 
that  it  remains  the  same  throughout  a  play;  or 
(so  the  reproach  is  sometimes  worded)  that  it  is 
not  a  character  but  an  invariable  attitude.  A  little 
examination  will  show  us,  I  think,  that,  though 


372  PLAY-MAKING 

the  critic  may  in  these  cases  be  pointing  to  a  real 
fault,  he  does  not  express  himself  quite  accurately. 
What  is  character?  For  the  practical  purposes 
of  the  dramatist,  it  may  be  defined  as  a  complex 
of  intellectual,  emotional,  and  nervous  habits. 
Some  of  these  habits  are  innate  and  temperamental 

—  habits  formed,  no  doubt,  by  far-off  ancestors.1 
But  this  distinction  does  not  here  concern  us.    Tem- 
peramental bias  is  a  habit,  like  another,  only  some- 
what older,  and,  therefore,  harder  to  deflect  or 
eradicate.       What  do  we  imply,  then,  when  we 
complain  that,  in  a  given  character,  no  develop- 
ment has  taken  place?     We  imply  that  he  ought, 
within  the  limits  of  the  play,  to  have  altered  the 
mental  habits  underlying  his  speech  and  actions. 
But  is  this  a  reasonable  demand?    Is  it  consistent 
with  the  usual  and  desirable  time-limits  of  drama? 
In  the  long  process  of  a  novel,  there  may  be  time 
for  the  gradual  alteration  of  habits :   in  the  drama, 
which  normally   consists  of   a  single  crisis,   any 
real  change  of  character  would  have  to  be  of  a 
catastrophic  nature,  in  which  experience  does  not 
encourage  us  to  put  much  faith.    It  was,  indeed  — 
as  Dryden  pointed  out  in  a  passage  quoted  above  2 

—  one  of  the  foibles  of  our  easy-going  ancestors 
to  treat  character  as  practically  reversible  when 
the  time  approached  for  ringing  down  the  curtain. 
The  same  convention  survives  to  this  day  in  cer- 

*  If  this  runs  counter  to  the  latest  biological  orthodoxy, 
I  am  sorry.  Habits  are  at  any  rate  transmissible  by  imita- 
tion, if  not  otherwise. 

1  Chapter  XIX. 


CHARACTER  AND  PSYCHOLOGY     373 

tain  forms  of  drama.  Even  Ibsen,  in  his  earlier 
work,  had  not  shaken  it  off;  witness  the  sudden 
ennoblement  of  Bernick  in  Pillars  of  Society.  But 
it  can  scarcely  be  that  sort  of  "  development " 
which  the  critics  consider  indispensable.  What  is 
it,  then,  that  they  have  in  mind? 

By  "  development  "of  character,  I  think  they 
mean,  not  change,  but  rather  unveiling,  disclosure. 
They  hold,  not  unreasonably,  that  a  dramatic  crisis 
ought  to  disclose  latent  qualities  in  the  persons 
chiefly  concerned  in  it,  and  involve,  not,  indeed, 
a  change,  but,  as  it  were,  an  exhaustive  mani- 
festation of  character.  The  interest  of  the  highest 
order  of  drama  should  consist  in  the  reaction  of 
character  to  a  series  of  crucial  experiences.  We 
should,  at  the  end  of  a  play,  know  more  of  the 
protagonist's  character  than  he  himself,  or  his 
most  intimate  friend,  could  know  at  the  beginning ; 
for  the  action  should  have  been  such  as  to  put  it 
to  some  novel  and  searching  test.  The  word  "  de- 
velopment "  might  be  very  aptly  used  in  the  photo- 
graphic sense.  A  drama  ought  to  bring  out  char- 
acter as  the  photographer's  chemicals  "  bring  out  " 
the  forms  latent  in  the  negative.  But  this  is  quite 
a  different  thing  from  development  in  the  sense 
of  growth  or  radical  change.  In  all  modern  drama, 
there  is  perhaps  no  character  who  "  develops,"  in 
the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word,  so  startlingly  as 
Ibsen's  Nora;  and  we  cannot  but  feel  that  the 
poet  has  compressed  into  a  week  an  evolution 
which,  in  fact,  would  have  demanded  many  months. 


374  PLAY-MAKING 

The  complaint  that  a  character  preserves  the 
same  attitude  throughout  means  (if  it  be  justified) 
that  it  is  not  a  human  being  at  all,  but  a  mere 
embodiment  of  two  or  three  characteristics  which 
are  fully  displayed  within  the  first  ten  minutes,  and 
then  keep  on  repeating  themselves,  like  a  recurrent 
decimal.  Strong  theatrical  effects  can  be  produced 
by  this  method,  which  is  that  of  the  comedy  of 
types,  or  of  "  humors."  But  it  is  now  generally, 
and  rightly,  held  that  a  character  should  be  pri- 
marily an  individual,  and  only  incidentally  (if  at 
all)  capable  of  classification  under  this  type  or 
that.  It  is  a  little  surprising  to  find  Sarcey,  so 
recently  as  1889,  laying  it  down  that  "  a  character 
is  a  master  faculty  or  passion,  which  absorbs  all 
the  rest.  ...  To  study  and  paint  a  character  is, 
therefore,  by  placing  a  man  in  a  certain  number 
of  situations,  to  show  how  this  principal  motive 
force  in  his  nature  annihilates  or  directs  all  those 
which,  if  he  had  been  another  man,  would  probably 
have  come  into  action."  This  dogma  of  the  "ruling 
passion  "  belongs  rather  to  the  eighteenth  century 
than  to  the  close  of  the  nineteenth. 

We  come  now  to  the  second  of  the  questions 
above  propounded,  which  I  will  state  more  defi- 
nitely in  this  form :  Is  "  psychology  "  simply  a 
more  pedantic  term  for  "  character-drawing  "  ?  Or 
can  we  establish  a  distinction  between  the  two 
ideas?  I  do  not  think  that,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
any  difference  is  generally  and  clearly  recognized; 


CHARACTER  AND  PSYCHOLOGY     375 

but  I  suggest  that  it  is  possible  to  draw  a  dis- 
tinction which  might,  if  accepted,  prove  service- 
able both  to  critics  and  to  playwrights. 

Let  me  illustrate  my  meaning  by  an  example. 
In  Bella  Donna,  by  Messrs.  Robert  Hichens  and 
James  B.  Fagan,  we  have  a  murder-story  of  a  not 
uncommon  or  improbable  type.  A  woman  of  very 
shady  reputation  marries  an  amiable  idealist  who  is 
infatuated  with  her.  She  naturally  finds  his  ideal- 
ism incomprehensible  and  his  amiability  tedious. 
His  position  as  heir-presumptive  to  a  peerage  is 
shattered  by  the  birth  of  an  heir-apparent.  She 
becomes  passionately  enamoured  of  an  Egyptian 
millionaire;  and  she  sets  to  work  to  poison  her 
husband  with  sugar-of-lead,  provided  by  her  orien- 
tal lover.  How  her  criminal  purpose  is  thwarted 
by  a  wise  Jewish  physician  is  nothing  to  the  present 
purpose.  In  intent  she  is  a  murderess,  no  less  than 
Lucrezia  Borgia  or  the  Marquise  de  Brinvilliers. 
And  the  authors  have  drawn  her  character  cleverly 
enough.  They  have  shown  her  in  the  first  act 
as  a  shallow-souled  materialist,  and  in  the  later 
acts  as  a  vain,  irritable,  sensual,  unscrupulous  crea- 
ture. But  have  they  given  us  any  insight  into  her 
psychology?  No,  that  is  just  what  they  have  not 
done.  They  have  assigned  to  her  certain  char- 
acteristics without  which  cruel  and  cold-blooded 
murder  would  be  inconceivable;  but  they  have 
afforded  us  no  insight  into  the  moral  conditions 
and  mental  processes  which  make  it,  not  only  con- 
ceivable, but  almost  an  everyday  occurrence.  For 


376  PLAY-MAKING 

the  average  human  mind,  I  suppose,  the  psychology 
of  crime,  and  especially  of  fiendish,  hypocritical 
murder-by-inches,  has  an  undeniable  fascination. 
To  most  of  us  it  seems  an  abhorrent  miracle ;  and 
it  would  interest  us  greatly  to  have  it  brought  more 
or  less  within  the  range  of  our  comprehension,  and 
co-ordinated  with  other  mental  phenomena  which 
we  can  and  do  understand.  But  of  such  illumina- 
tion we  find  nothing  in  Bella  Donna.  It  leaves  the 
working  of  a  poisoner's  mind  as  dark  to  us  as  ever. 
So  far  as  that  goes,  we  might  just  as  well  have 
read  the  report  of  a  murder-trial,  wherein  the 
facts  are  stated  with,  perhaps,  some  superficial 
speculation  as  to  motive,  but  no  attempt  is  made 
to  penetrate  to  underlying  soul-states.  Yet  this  is 
surely  the  highest  privilege  of  art  —  to  take  us 
behind  and  beneath  those  surfaces  of  things  which 
are  apparent  to  the  detective  and  the  reporter,  the 
juryman  and  the  judge. 

Have  we  not  here,  then,  the  distinction  between 
character-drawing  and  psychology?  Character- 
drawing  is  the  presentment  of  human  nature  in  its 
commonly-recognized,  understood,  and  accepted  as- 
pects; psychology  is,  as  it  were,  the  exploration 
of  character,  the  bringing  of  hitherto  unsurveyed 
tracts  within  the  circle  of  our  knowledge  and  com- 
prehension. In  other  words,  character-drawing 
is  synthetic,  psychology  analytic.  This  does  not 
mean  that  the  one  is  necessarily  inferior  to  the 
other.  Some  of  the  greatest  masterpieces  of  crea- 
tive art  have  been  achieved  by  the  synthesis  of 


CHARACTER  AND  PSYCHOLOGY  377 

known  elements.  Falstaff,  for  example  —  there  is 
no  more  brilliant  or  more  living  character  in  all 
fiction ;  yet  it  is  impossible  to  say  that  Shakespeare 
has  here  taken  us  into  previously  unplumbed  depths 
of  human  nature,  as  he  nas  in  Hamlet,  or  in  Lear. 
No  doubt  it  is  often  very  hard  to  decide  whether  a 
given  personage  is  a  mere  projection  of  the  known 
or  a  divination  of  the  unknown.  What  are  we  to 
say,  for  example,  of  Cleopatra,  or  of  Shy  lock,  or 
of  Macbeth?  Richard  II,  on  the  other  hand,  is 
as  clearly  a  piece  of  psychology  as  the  Nurse  in 
Romeo  and  Juliet  is  a  piece  of  character-drawing. 
The  comedy  of  types  necessarily  tends  to  keep 
within  the  limits  of  the  known,  and  Moliere  —  in 
spite  of  Alceste  and  Don  Juan  —  is  characteris- 
tically a  character-drawer,  as  Racine  is  character- 
istically a  psychologist.  Ibsen  is  a  psychologist 
or  he  is  nothing.  Earl  Skule  and  Bishop  Nicholas, 
Hedda  Gabler  and  John  Gabriel  Borkman  are  dar- 
ing explorations  of  hitherto  uncharted  regions  of 
the  human  soul.  But  Ibsen,  too,  was  a  character- 
drawer  when  it  suited  him.  One  is  tempted  to  say 
that  there  is  no  psychology  in  Brand  —  he  is  a 
mere  incarnation  of  intransigeant  idealism  —  while 
Peer  Gynt  is  as  brilliant  a  psychological  inspiration 
as  Don  Quixote.  Dr.  Stockmann  is  a  vigorously- 
projected  character,  Hialmar  Ekdal  a  piece  of 
searching  psychology.  Finally,  my  point  could 
scarcely  be  better  illustrated  than  by  a  comparison 
—  cruel  but  instructive  —  between  Rebecca  in  Ros- 
mersholm  and  the  heroine  in  Bella  Donna.  Each 


378  PLAY-MAKING 

is,  in  effect,  a  murderess,  though  it  was  a  moral, 
not  a  mineral,  poison  that  Rebecca  employed.  But 
while  we  know  nothing  whatever  of  Mrs.  Armine's 
mental  processes,  Rebecca's  temptations,  struggles, 
sophistries,  hesitations,  resolves,  and  revulsions  of 
feeling  are  all  laid  bare  to  us,  so  that  we  feel 
her  to  be  no  monster,  but  a  living  woman,  com- 
prehensible to  our  intelligence,  and,  however 
blameworthy,  not  wholly  beyond  the  range  of  our 
sympathies.  There  are  few  greater  achievements 
of  psychology. 

Among  the  playwrights  of  to-day,  I  should  call 
Mr.  Granville  Barker  above  all  things  a  psycholo- 
gist. It  is  his  instinct  to  venture  into  untrodden 
fields  of  character,  or,  at  any  rate,  to  probe  deeply 
into  phenomena  which  others  have  noted  but  super- 
ficially, if  at  all.  Hence  the  occasional  obscurity 
of  his  dialogue.  Mr.  Shaw  is  not,  primarily,  either 
a  character-drawer  or  a  psychologist,  but  a  dealer 
in  personified  ideas.  His  leading  figures  are,  as 
a  rule,  either  his  mouthpieces  or  his  butts.  When 
he  gives  us  a  piece  of  real  character-drawing,  it  is 
generally  in  some  subordinate  personage.  Mr. 
Galsworthy,  I  should  say,  shows  himself  a  psy- 
chologist in  Strife,  a  character-drawer  in  The 
Silver  Box  and  Justice.  Sir  Arthur  Pinero,  a 
character-drawer  of  great  versatility,  becomes  a 
psychologist  in  some  of  his  studies  of  feminine 
types  —  in  Iris,  in  Letty,  in  the  luckless  heroine 
of  Mid-Channel.  Mr.  Clyde  Fitch  had,  at  least, 
laudable  ambitions  in  the  direction  of  psychology. 


CHARACTER  AND  PSYCHOLOGY     379 

Becky  in  The  Truth,  and  Jinny  in  The  Girl  with 
the  Green  Eyes,  in  so  far  as  they  are  successfully 
drawn,  really  do  mean  a  certain  advance  in  our 
knowledge  of  feminine  human  nature.  Unfortu- 
nately, owing  to  the  author's  over-facile  and  over- 
hasty  method  of  work,  they  are  now  and  then  a 
little  out  of  drawing.  The  most  striking  piece  of 
psychology  known  to  me  in  American  drama  is  the 
Faith  Healer  in  William  Vaughn  Moody's  drama 
of  that  name.  If  the  last  act  of  The  Faith  Healer 
were  as  good  as  the  rest  of  it,  one  might  safely 
call  it  the  finest  play  ever  written,  at  any  rate  in 
the  English  language,  beyond  the  Atlantic.  The 
psychologists  of  the  modern  French  stage,  I  take 
it,  are  M.  de  Curel  and  M.  de  Porto-Riche.  MM. 
Brieux  and  Hervieu  are,  like  Mr.  Shaw,  too  much 
concerned  with  ideas  to  probe  very  deep  into  char- 
acter. In  Germany,  Hauptmann,  and,  so  far  as 
I  understand  him,  Wedekind,  are  psychologists, 
Sudermann,  a  vigorous  character-drawer. 

It  is  pretty  clear  that,  if  this  distinction  were 
accepted,  it  would  be  of  use  to  the  critic,  inasmuch 
as  we  should  have  two  terms  for  two  ideas,  instead 
of  one  popular  term  with  a  rather  pedantic  syno- 
nym. But  what  would  be  its  practical  use  to  the 
artist,  the  craftsman?  Simply  this,  that  if  the 
word  "  psychology  "  took  on  for  him  a  clear  and 
definite  meaning,  it  might  stimulate  at  once  his 
imagination  and  his  ambition.  Messrs.  Hichens 
and  Fagan,  for  example,  might  have  asked  them- 
selves —  or  each  other  —  "  Are  we  getting  beneath 


380  PLAY-MAKING 

the  surface  of  this  woman's  nature?  Are  we  pluck- 
ing the  heart  out  of  her  mystery?  Cannot  we 
make  the  specific  processes  of  a  murderess's  mind 
clearer  to  ourselves  and  to  our  audiences  ? " 
Whether  they  would  have  been  capable  of  rising 
to  the  opportunity,  I  cannot  tell;  but  in  the  case 
of  other  authors  one  not  infrequently  feels :  "  This 
man  could  have  taken  us  deeper  into  this  problem 
if  he  had  only  thought  of  it."  I  do  not  for  a 
moment  mean  that  every  serious  dramatist  should 
always  be  aiming  at  psychological  exploration. 
The  character-drawer's  appeal  to  common  knowl- 
edge and  instant  recognition  is  often  all  that  is 
required,  or  that  would  be  in  place.  But  there  are 
also  occasions  not  a  few  when  the  dramatist  shows 
himself  unequal  to  his  opportunities  if  he  does 
not  at  least  attempt  to  bring  hitherto  unrecorded 
or  unscrutinized  phases  of  character  within  the 
scope  of  our  understanding  and  our  sympathies. 


XXIII 

DIALOGUE   AND   DETAILS 

E  extraordinary  progress  made  by  the  drama 
of  the  English  language  during  the  past  quar- 
ter of  a  century  is  in  nothing  more  apparent  than  in 
the  average  quality  of  modern  dialogue.  Toler- 
ably well-written  dialogue  is  nowadays  the  rule 
rather  than  the  exception.  Thirty  years  ago,  the 
idea  that  it  was  possible  to  combine  naturalness 
with  vivacity  and  vigour  had  scarcely  dawned 
upon  the  playwright's  mind.  He  passed  and  re- 
passed  from  stilted  pathos  to  strained  and  verbal 
wit  (often  mere  punning)  ;  and  when  a  reformer 
like  T.  W.  Robertson  tried  to  come  a  little  nearer 
to  the  truth  of  life,  he  was  apt  to  fall  into  babyish 
simplicity  or  flat  commonness. 

Criticism  has  not  given  sufficient  weight  to  the 
fact  that  English  dramatic  writing  laboured  for 
centuries  —  and  still  labours  to  some  degree  — 
under  a  historic  misfortune.  It  has  never  wholly 
recovered  from  the  euphuism  —  to  use  the  word 
in  its  widest  sense  —  of  the  late  sixteenth  century. 
The  influence  of  John  Lyly  and  his  tribe  is  still 
traceable,  despite  a  hundred  metamorphoses,  in 
some  of  the  plays  of  to-day  and  in  many  of  the 
plays  of  yesterday.  From  the  very  beginnings  of 

381 


382  PLAY-MAKING 

English  comedy,  it  was  accepted  as  almost  self- 
evident  that  "  wit  "  —  a  factitious,  supererogatory 
sparkle  —  was  indispensable  to  all  dialogue  of  a 
non-tragic  order.  Language  was  a  newly  discov- 
ered and  irresistibly  fascinating  playground  for  the 
fancy.  Conversation  must  be  thick-strewn  with 
verbal  quibbles,  similes,  figures,  and  flourishes  of 
every  description,  else  it  was  unworthy  to  be 
spoken  on  the  stage.  We  all  know  how  freely 
Shakespeare  yielded  to  this  convention,  and  so 
helped  to  establish  it.  Sometimes,  not  always,  his 
genius  enabled  him  to  render  it  delightful;  but  in 
most  of  the  Elizabethans  —  though  it  be  heresy  to 
say  so  —  it  is  an  extremely  tedious  mannerism. 
After  the  Restoration,  when  modern  light  talk 
came  into  being  in  the  coffee-houses,  the  fashion 
of  the  day,  no  doubt,  favoured  a  straining  after 
wit ;  so  that  the  playwrights  were  in  some  measure 
following  nature  —  that  very  small  corner  of  na- 
ture which  they  called  "  the  town  "  —  in  accepting 
and  making  a  law  of  the  Elizabethan  convention. 
The  leading  characters  of  Restoration  comedy, 
from  Etherege  to  Vanbrugh,  are  consciously  and 
almost  professionally  wits.  Simile  and  repartee 
are  as  indispensable  a  part  of  a  gentleman's  social 
outfit  as  his  wig  or  his  rapier.  In  Congreve  the 
word  "  wit  "  is  almost  as  common  as  the  thing. 
When  Farquhar  made  some  movement  towards  a 
return  to  nature,  he  was  rewarded  with  Pope's 
line,  which  clings  like  a  burr  to  his  memory  — 

"  What  pert,  low  dialogue  has  Farquhar  writ." 


DIALOGUE   AND    DETAILS         383 

If  eighteenth-century  comedy,  as  a  whole,  is  not 
brilliantly  written,  it  is  for  lack  of  talent  in  the 
playwrights,  not  for  lack  of  desire  or  intention. 
Goldsmith,  like  Farquhar  and  Steele,  vaguely  real- 
ized the  superiority  of  humour  to  wit;  but  he  died 
too  early  to  exercise  much  influence  on  his  suc- 
cessors. In  Sheridan  the  convention  of  wit  re- 
asserted itself  triumphantly,  and  the  scene  in  which 
Lady  Teazle,  Mrs.  Candour,  and  the  rest  of  the 
scandalous  college  sit  in  a  semicircle  and  cap  mali- 
cious similes,  came  to  be  regarded  as  an  unap- 
proachable model  of  comedy  dialogue.  The  con- 
vention maintained  itself  firmly  down  to  the  days 
of  Money  and  London  Assurance,  the  dulness  of 
the  intervening  period  being  due,  not  to  any  change 
of  theory,  but  to  sheer  impotence  of  practice. 
T.  W.  Robertson,  as  above  mentioned,  attempted  a 
return  to  nature,  with  occasional  and  very  partial 
success;  but  wit,  with  a  dash  of  fanciful  sentiment, 
re-asserted  itself  in  James  Albery;  while  in  H.  J. 
Byron  it  degenerated  into  mere  punning  and  verbal 
horse-play.  I  should  not  be  surprised  if  the  his- 
torian of  the  future  were  to  find  in  the  plays  of 
Mr.  Henry  Arthur  Jones  the  first  marked  symp- 
toms of  a  reaction  —  of  a  tendency  to  reject  ex- 
trinsic and  fanciful  ornament  in  dialogue,  and  to 
rely  for  its  effect  upon  its  vivid  appropriateness  to 
character  and  situation.  In  the  early  plays  of  Sir 
Arthur  Pinero  there  is  a  great  deal  of  extrinsic 
ornament;  especially  of  that  metaphor-hunting 
which  was  one  of  the  characteristic  forms  of 


384  PLAY-MAKING 

euphuism.  Take  this,  for  example,  from  The 
Profligate.  Dunstan  Renshaw  has  expressed  to 
Hugh  Murray  the  opinion  that  "  marriages  of 
contentment  are  the  reward  of  husbands  who 
have  taken  the  precaution  to  sow  their  wild  oats 
rather  thickly " ;  whereupon  the  Scotch  solicitor 
replies  — 

HUGH  MURRAY  :  Contentment !  Renshaw,  do  you 
imagine  that  there  is  no  autumn  in  the  life  of  a 
profligate?  Do  you  think  there  is  no  moment  when 
the  accursed  crop  begins  to  rear  its  millions  of  heads 
above  ground;  when  the  rich  man  would  give  his 
wealth  to  be  able  to  tread  them  back  into  the  earth 
which  rejects  the  foul  load  ?  To-day  you  have  robbed 
some  honest  man  of  a  sweet  companion! 

DUNSTAN  RENSHAW  :  Look  here,  Mr.  Murray  —  ! 

HUGH  MURRAY:  To-morrow,  next  week,  next 
month,  you  may  be  happy  —  but  what  of  the  time 
when  those  wild  oats  thrust  their  ears  through  the 
very  seams  of  the  floor  trodden  by  the  wife  whose 
respect  you  will  have  learned  to  covet !  You  may  drag 
her  into  the  crowded  streets  —  there  is  the  same  vile 
growth  springing  up  from  the  chinks  of  the  pave- 
ment! In  your  house  or  in  the  open,  the  scent  of 
the  mildewed  grain  always  in  your  nostrils,  and  in 
your  ears  no  music  but  the  wind's  rustle  amongst 
the  fat  sheaves!  And,  worst  of  all,  your  wife's 
heart  a  granary  bursting  with  the  load  of  shame 
your  profligacy  has  stored  there !  I  warn  you  —  Mr. 
Lawrence  Kenward! 

If  we  compare  this  passage  with  any  page  taken 
at  random  from  Mid-Channel,  we  might  think 


DIALOGUE   AND    DETAILS         385 

that  a  century  of  evolution  lay  between  them,  in- 
stead of  barely  twenty  years. 

The  convention  of  wit-at-any-price  is,  indeed, 
moribund;  but  it  is  perhaps  not  quite  superfluous, 
even  now,  to  emphasize  the  difference  between 
what  the  French  call  the  "  mot  d'auteur  "  and  the 
"  mot  de  situation."  The  terms  practically  explain 
themselves;  but  a  third  class  ought  to  be  added 
—  the  "  mot  de  caraetere."  The  "  mot  d'auteur  " 
is  the  distinguishing  mark  of  the  Congreve- 
Sheridan  convention.  It  survives  in  full  vigour  — 
or,  shall  one  say,  it  sings  its  swan-song  ?  —  in  the 
works  of  Oscar  Wilde.  For  instance,  the  scene  of 
the  five  men  in  the  third  act  of  Lady  Windemere's 
Fan  is  a  veritable  running-fire  of  epigrams  wholly 
unconnected  with  the  situation,  and  very  slightly 
related,  if  at  all,  to  the  characters  of  the  speakers. 
The  mark  of  the  "  mot  d'auteur  "  is  that  it  can 
with  perfect  ease  be  detached  from  its  context. 
I  could  fill  this  page  with  sayings  from  the  scene 
in  question,  all  perfectly  comprehensible  without 
any  account  of  the  situation.  Among  them  would 
be  one  of  those  profound  sayings  which  Wilde 
now  and  then  threw  off  in  his  lightest  moods, 
like  opals  among  soap-bubbles.  "  In  the  world," 
says  Dumby,  "  there  are  two  tragedies.  One  is  not 
getting  what  one  wants,  and  the  other  is  getting 
it."  This  may  rank  with  Lord  Illingworth's 
speech  in  A  Woman  of  No  Importance:  "  All 
thought  is  immoral.  Its  very  essence  is  destruc- 
tion. If  you  think  of  anything  you  kill  it.  Nothing 


386  PLAY-MAKING 

survives  being  thought  of."  When  we  hear  such 
sayings  as  these  —  or  the  immortal  "  Vulgarity  is 
the  behaviour  of  other  people,"  —  we  do  not  en- 
quire too  curiously  into  their  appropriateness  to 
character  or  situation;  but  none  the  less  do  they 
belong  to  an  antiquated  conception  of  drama. 

It  is  useless  to  begin  to  give  specimens  of  the 
"  mot  de  caractere  "  and  "  mot  de  situation."  All 
really  dramatic  dialogue  falls  under  one  head  or 
the  other.  One  could  easily  pick  out  a  few  bril- 
liantly effective  examples  of  each  class:  but  as 
their  characteristic  is  to  fade  when  uprooted  from 
the  soil  in  which  they  grow,  they  would  take  up 
space  to  very  little  purpose. 

But  there  is  another  historic  influence,  besides 
that  of  euphuism,  which  has  been  hurtful,  though 
in  a  minor  degree,  to  the  development  of  a  sound 
style  in  dialogue.  Some  of  the  later  Elizabethans, 
and  notably  Webster  and  Ford,  cultivated  a  fashion 
of  abrupt  utterance,  whereby  an  immensity  of  spir- 
itual significance  —  generally  tragic  —  was  sup- 
posed to  be  concentrated  into  a  few  brief  words. 
The  classic  example  is  Ferdinand's  "  Cover  her 
face.  Mine  eyes  dazzle.  She  died  young,"  in  The 
Duchess  of  Malfy.  Charles  Lamb  celebrated  the 
virtues  of  this  pregnant,  staccato  style  with  some- 
what immoderate  admiration,  and  thus  helped  to 
set  a  fashion  of  spasmodic  pithiness  in  dialogue, 
which  too  often  resulted  in  dense  obscurity.  Not 
many  plays  composed  under  this  influence  have 
reached  the  stage ;  not  one  has  held  it.  But  we  find 


DIALOGUE   AND    DETAILS         387 

in  some  recent  writing  a  qualified  recrudescence  of 
the  spasmodic  manner,  with  a  touch  of  euphuism 
thrown  in.  This  is  mainly  due,  I  think,  to  the 
influence  of  George  Meredith,  who  accepted  the 
convention  of  wit  as  the  informing  spirit  of  comedy 
dialogue,  and  whose  abnormally  rapid  faculty  of 
association  led  him  to  delight  in  a  sort  of  intel- 
lectual shorthand  which  the  normal  mind  finds 
very  difficult  to  decipher.  Meredith  was  a  man 
of  brilliant  genius,  which  lent  a  fascination  to  his 
very  mannerisms ;  but  when  these  mannerisms  are 
transferred  by  lesser  men  to  a  medium  much  less 
suited  to  them  —  that  of  the  stage  —  the  result  is 
apt  to  be  disastrous.  I  need  not  go  into  particulars ; 
for  no  play  of  which  the  dialogue  places  a  constant 
strain  on  the  intellectual  muscles  of  the  audience 
ever  has  held,  or  ever  will  hold,  a  place  in  living 
dramatic  literature.  I  will  merely  note  the  curious 
fact  that  English  —  my  own  language  —  is  the 
only  language  out  of  the  three  or  four  known 
to  me  in  which  I  have  ever  come  across  an  en- 
tirely incomprehensible  play.  I  could  name  Eng- 
lish plays,  both  pre-Meredithian  and  post-Mere- 
dithian,  which  might  almost  as  well  be  written  in 
Chinese  for  all  that  I  can  make  of  them. 

Obscurity  and  preciosity  are  generally  symptoms 
of  an  exaggerated  dread  of  the  commonplace.  The 
writer  of  dramatic  prose  has,  indeed,  a  very  diffi- 
cult task  if  he  is  to  achieve  style  without  deserting 
nature.  Perhaps  it  would  be  more  accurate  to 
say  that  the  difficulty  lies  in  getting  criticism  to 


388  PLAY-MAKING 

give  him  credit  for  the  possession  of  style,  without 
incurring  the  reproach  of  mannerism.  How  is  one 
to  give  concentration  and  distinction  to  ordinary 
talk,  while  making  it  still  seem  ordinary?  Either 
the  distinction  will  strike  the  critics,  and  they  will 
call  it  pompous  and  unreal,  or  the  ordinariness 
will  come  home  to  them,  and  they  will  deny  the  dis- 
tinction. This  is  the  dramatist's  constant  dilemma. 
One  can  only  comfort  him  with  the  assurance  that 
if  he  has  given  his  dialogue  the  necessary  con- 
centration, and  has  yet  kept  it  plausibly  near  to 
the  language  of  life,  he  has  achieved  style,  and  may 
snap  his  fingers  at  the  critics.  Style,  in  prose 
drama,  is  the  sifting  of  common  speech. 

It  is  true,  however,  that,  with  equal  concentra- 
tion and  equal  naturalness,  one  man  may  give  his 
work  a  beauty  of  cadence  and  phrasing  which  an- 
other man  may  entirely  miss.  Two  recent  writers 
of  English  dramatic  prose  have  stood  out  from 
their  fellows  in  respect  of  the  sheer  beauty  of  their 
style  —  I  need  scarcely  name  Oscar  Wilde  and 
J.  M.  Synge.  But  Wilde's  dialogue  can  by  no 
means  be  called  free  from  mannerism,1  while 

1  So,  too,  with  the  style  of  Congreve.  It  is  much,  and 
justly,  admired;  but  who  does  not  feel  more  than  a  touch 
of  mannerism  in  such  a  passage  as  this?  — 

MILLAMANT:  "...  Let  us  never  visit  together,  nor  go  to 
a  play  together ;  but  let  us  be  very  strange  and  well-bred : 
let  us  be  as  strange  as  if  we  had  been  married  a  great 
while;  and  as  well-bred  as  if  we  were  not  married  at  all." 

MIRABELL:  "Have  you  any  more  conditions  to  offer? 
Hitherto  your  demands  are  pretty  reasonable." 

MILLAMANT  :  "  Trifles !  —  as  liberty  to  pay  and  receive 
visits  to  and  from  whom  I  please;  to  write  and  receive  let- 


DIALOGUE   AND    DETAILS         389 

Synge  wrote  in  a  language  which  had  a  music  of  its 
own,  even  before  his  genius  took  hold  of  it. 

It  does  not  seem  very  profitable  to  try  to  con- 
centrate into  a  definition  the  distinctive  qualities 
of  dramatic  dialogue.  The  late  Mrs.  Craigie 
("John  Oliver  Hobbes  ")  attempted  to  do  so  in 
the  preface  to  a  charming  play,  The  Ambassador; 
and  the  result  —  or  at  any  rate  the  sequel  —  was 
that  her  next  play,  The  Wisdom  of  the  Wise,  was 
singularly  self-conscious  and  artificial.  She  found 
in  "  emotion  "  the  test  of  dramatic  quality  in  any 
given  utterance.  "  Stage  dialogue,"  she  says, 
"  may  or  may  not  have  many  qualities,  but  it  must 
be  emotional."  Here  we  have  a  statement  which 
is  true  in  a  vague  and  general  sense,  untrue  in 
the  definite  and  particular  sense  in  which  alone 
it  could  afford  any  practical  guidance.  "  My  lord, 
the  carriage  waits,"  may  be,  in  its  right  place,  a 
highly  dramatic  speech,  even  though  it  be  uttered 
with  no  emotion,  and  arouse  no  emotion  in  the  per- 
son addressed.  What  Mrs.  Craigie  meant,  I  take 
it,  was  that,  to  be  really  dramatic,  every  speech 
must  have  some  bearing,  direct  or  indirect,  prospec- 
tive, present,  or  retrospective,  upon  individual 

ters,  without  interrogatories  or  wry  faces  on  your  part;  to 
wear  what  I  please;  and  choose  conversation  with  regard 
only  to  my  own  taste;  to  have  no  obligation  upon  me  to 
converse  with  wits  that  I  don't  like  because  they  are  your 
acquaintances;  or  to  be  intimate  with  fools  because  they 
may  be  your  relatives.  .  .  .  These  articles  subscribed,  if  I 
continue  to  endure  you  a  little  longer,  I  may  by  degrees 
dwindle  into  a  wife.' 

This  is  very  pretty  prose,  granted;   but  it  is  the  prose  of 
literature,  not  of  life. 


390  PLAY-MAKING 

human  destinies.  The  dull  play,  the  dull  scene, 
the  dull  speech,  is  that  in  which  we  do  not  per- 
ceive this  connection ;  but  when  once  we  are  inter- 
ested in  the  individuals  concerned,  we  are  so  quick 
to  perceive  the  connection,  even  though  it  be  ex- 
ceedingly distant  and  indirect,  that  the  dramatist, 
who  should  always  hold  the  fear  of  Mrs.  Craigie's 
aphorism  consciously  before  his  eyes  would  un- 
necessarily fetter  and  restrict  himself.  Even  the 
driest  scientific  proposition  may,  under  special  cir- 
cumstances, become  electrical  with  drama.  The 
statement  that  the  earth  moves  round  the  sun  does 
not,  in  itself,  stir  our  pulses ;  yet  what  playwright 
has  ever  invented  a  more  dramatic  utterance  than 
that  which  some  one  invented  for  Galileo :  "  E  pur 
si  muove ! "  ?  In  all  this,  to  be  sure,  I  am  illus- 
trating, not  confuting,  Mrs.  Craigie's  maxim.  I 
have  no  wish  to  confute  it,  for,  in  the  largest 
interpretation,  it  is  true;  but  I  suggest  that  it  is 
true  only  when  attenuated  almost  beyond  recog- 
nition, and  quite  beyond  the  point  at  which  it 
can  be  of  any  practical  help  to  the  practical  dram- 
atist. He  must  rely  on  his  instinct,  not  numb  and 
bewilder  it  by  constantly  subjecting  it  to  the  dic- 
tates of  hard-and-fast  aesthetic  theory. 

We  shall  scarcely  come  much  nearer  to  helpful 
truth  than  the  point  we  have  already  reached,  in 
the  principle  that  all  dialogue,  except  the  merely 
mechanical  parts  —  the  connective  tissue  of  the 
play  —  should  consist  either  of  "  mots  de  carac- 
tere  "  or  of  "  mots  de  situation."  But  if  we  go 


DIALOGUE   AND    DETAILS         391 

to  French  critics  for  this  principle,  do  not  let  us 
go  to  French  dramatists  for  models  of  practice. 
It  is  part  of  the  abiding  insularity  of  our  criti- 
cism that  the  same  writers  who  cannot  forgive  an 
English  dramatist  what  they  conceive  to  be  a  stilted 
turn  of  phrase,  will  pass  without  remark,  if  not 
with  positive  admiration,  the  outrageously  rhe- 
torical style  which  is  still  prevalent  in  French 
drama.  Here,  for  instance,  is  a  quite  typical  pas- 
sage from  Le  Duel,  by  M.  Henri  Lavedan,  an 
author  of  no  small  repute;  and  it  would  be  easy 
to  find  even  more  magniloquent  tirades  in  the 
works  of  almost  any  of  his  contemporaries.  I 
translate  from  the  concluding  scene  between  the 
Abbe  and  the  Duchess :  — 

THE  ABBE  :  "  In  our  strange  life,  there  are  some- 
times unexpected  and  decisive  moments,  sovereign, 
though  we  know  not  why.  We  feel  it,  that  is  all! 
—  fulgurant  moments,  which  throw,  as  it  were,  a 
flash  of  lightning  upon  our  destinies,  like  those  me- 
teors which  shine  forth  from  time  to  time  in  the 
heavens,  and  of  which  none  can  say  what  their 
purple  signifies,  whether  it  be  a  cataclysm  or  an 
apotheosis.  Well,  it  appears  to  me  that  we,  you  and 
I,  are  now  face  to  face  with  one  of  these  moments !  " 

THE  DUCHESS:  "  So  I,  too,  believe." 

THE  ABBE  :  "  We  must  take  care,  then,  that  it  be 
an  apotheosis.  That  is  why  I  want  —  Mon  Dieu, 
madame!  how  shall  I  say  it  to  you?  Where  shall 
I  go  to  find  the  chosen  words,  the  words  of  pure 
gold,  of  diamonds,  the  immaculate  words  that  are 
worthy  of  us?  All  that  you  are,  all  that  you  are 


392  PLAY-MAKING 

worth,  I  know,  and  I  alone  know.  You  have  opened, 
that  I  might  read  it,  the  book  of  hours  that  is  your 
mind.  I  am  in  no  wise  disquieted  about  you  or 
your  future;  yet,  that  I  may  be  fully  reassured  be- 
fore we  part,  I  wish,  I  wish  you  to  tell  me,  to  de- 
clare to  me,  that  you  are  at  this  very  moment  in 
absolute  repose,  calm  as  a  lake." 

And  so  Monsieur  1'Abbe  goes  on  for  another 
page.  If  it  be  said  that  this  ornate  eloquence  is 
merely  professional,  I  reply  that  his  brother,  the 
atheist  doctor,  and  the  Duchess  herself,  are  quite 
as  copious  in  their  rhetoric,  and  scarcely  less  ornate. 

It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  "  literary  merit  " 
can  be  imparted  to  drama  by  such  flagrant  de- 
partures from  nature;  though  some  critics  have 
not  yet  outgrown  that  superstition.  Let  the  play- 
wright take  to  heart  an  anecdote  told  by  Professor 
Matthews  in  his  Inquiries  and  Opinions  —  an  anec- 
dote of  a  New  England  farmer,  who,  being  asked 
who  was  the  architect  of  his  house,  replied :  "  Oh, 
I  built  that  house  myself ;  but  there  's  a  man  com- 
ing down  from  Boston  next  week  to  put  on  the 
architecture."  Better  no  style  at  all  than  style 
thus  plastered  on. 

What  is  to  be  said  of  the  possibilities  of  blank 
verse  as  a  dramatic  medium?  This  is  a  thorny 
question,  to  be  handled  with  caution.  One  can 
say  with  perfect  assurance,  however,  that  its  possi- 
bilities are  problematical,  its  difficulties  and  dan- 
gers certain. 


DIALOGUE   AND    DETAILS         393 

To  discuss  the  question  whether  drama  in  verse 
is  in  its  very  nature  nobler  than  drama  in  prose 
would  lead  us  away  from  craftsmanship  into  the 
realm  of  pure  aesthetics.  For  my  own  part,  I 
doubt  it.  I  suspect  that  the  drama,  like  all  litera- 
ture, took  its  rise  in  verse,  for  the  simple  reason 
that  verse  is  easier  to  make  —  and  to  memorize 

—  than  prose.    Primitive  peoples  felt  with  Goethe 

—  though  not  quite  in  the  same  sense  —  that  "  art 
is  art  because  it  is  not  nature."     Not  merely  for 
emotional,  but  for  all  sorts  of  literary,  expression, 
they  demanded  a  medium  clearly  marked  off  from 
the  speech  of  everyday  life.     The  drama  "  lisped 
in  numbers,  for  the  numbers  came."     Even  of  so 
modern  a  writer  (comparatively)  as  Shakespeare, 
it  would  scarcely  be  true  to  say  that  he  "  chose  " 
verse  as  his  medium,  in  the  same  sense  in  which 
Ibsen  chose  prose.     He  accepted  it  just  as  he  ac- 
cepted the  other  traditions  and  methods  of  the 
theatre  of  his  time.    In  familiar  passages  he  broke 
away    from   it;    but   on   the   whole    it   provided 
(among  other  advantages)  a  convenient  and  even 
necessary   means   of    differentiation   between   the 
mimic  personage  and  the  audience,  from  whom  he 
was  not  marked  off  by  the  proscenium  arch  and 
the  artificial  lights  which  make  a  world  apart  of 
the  modern  stage. 

And  Shakespeare  so  glorified  this  metrical  me- 
dium as  to  give  it  an  overwhelming  prestige.  It 
was  extremely  easy  to  write  blank  verse  after  a 
fashion ;  and  playwrights  who  found  it  flow  almost 


394  PLAY-MAKING 

spontaneously  from  their  pens  were  only  too  ready 
to  overlook  the  world-wide  difference  between  their 
verse  and  that  of  the  really  great  Elizabethans. 
Just  after  the  Restoration,  there  was  an  attempt 
to  introduce  the  rhymed  couplet  as  the  medium 
for  heroic  plays ;  but  that,  on  the  other  hand,  was 
too  difficult  to  establish  itself  in  general  use. 
Tragedy  soon  fell  back  upon  the  fatally  facile  un- 
rhymed  iambic,  and  a  reign  of  stilted,  stodgy 
mediocrity  set  in.  There  is  nothing  drearier  in 
literature  than  the  century-and-a-half  of  English 
tragedy,  from  Otway  to  Sheridan  Knowles.  One 
is  lost  in  wonder  at  the  genius  of  the  actors  who 
could  infuse  life  and  passion  into  those  master- 
pieces of  turgid  conventionality.  The  worship 
of  the  minor  Elizabethans,  which  began  with 
Lamb  and  culminated  in  Swinburne,  brought  into 
fashion  (as  we  have  seen)  a  spasmodic  rather 
than  a  smoothly  rhetorical  way  of  writing,  but  did 
not  really  put  new  life  into  the  outworn  form. 
It  may  almost  be  called  an  appalling  fact  that  for 
at  least  two  centuries  —  from  1700  to  1900  —  not 
a  single  blank-verse  play  was  produced  which  lives, 
or  deserves  to  live,1  on  the  stage  of  to-day. 

I  have  thus  glanced  at  the  history  of  the  blank- 
verse  play  because  I  believe  that  it  can  never  re- 

1  From  the  fact  that  I  do  not  make  an  exception  in 
favour  of  The  Blot  in  the  Scutcheon  or  Strafford,  I  must 
leave  the  reader  to  draw  what  inference  he  pleases.  On  the 
other  hand,  I  believe  that  a  reconstruction  of  Tennyson's 
Queen  Mary,  with  a  few  connecting  links  written  in,  might 
take  a  permanent  place  in  the  theatre. 


DIALOGUE   AND    DETAILS         395 

vive  until  we  clearly  realize  and  admit  that  it  is, 
and  has  been  for  a  century,  thoroughly  dead,  while, 
for  a  century  before  that  again,  it  was  only  gal- 
vanized into  a  semblance  of  life  by  a  great  school 
of  rhetorical  acting.  The  playwright  who  sets 
forth  with  the  idea  that,  in  writing  a  poetical 
drama,  he  is  going  to  continue  the  great  Eliza- 
bethan tradition,  is  starting  on  a  wild-goose  chase. 
The  great  Elizabethan  tradition  is  an  incubus  to 
be  exorcised.  It  was  because  Mr.  Stephen  Phillips 
was  not  Elizabethanizing,  but  clothing  a  vital  and 
personal  conception  of  drama  in  verse  of  very 
appealing  lyrical  quality,  that  some  of  us  thought 
we  saw  in  Paolo  and  Francesca  the  dawn  of  a  new 
art.  Apparently  it  was  a  false  dawn;  but  I  still 
believe  that  our  orientation  was  right  when  we 
looked  for  the  daybreak  in  the  lyric  quarter  of 
the  heavens.  The  very  summits  of  Shakespeare's 
achievement  are  his  glorious  lyrical  passages. 
Think  of  the  exquisite  elegiacs  of  Macbeth!  Think 
of  the  immortal  death-song  of  Cleopatra!  If  verse 
has  any  function  on  the  stage,  it  is  that  of  im- 
parting lyric  beauty  to  passionate  speech.  For  the 
mere  rhetorical  "  elevation "  of  blank  verse  we 
have  no  use  whatever.  It  consists  in  saying  simple 
things  with  verbose  pomposity.  But  should  there 
arise  a  man  who  combines  highly-developed  dra- 
matic faculty  with  great  lyric  genius,  it  is  quite 
possible  that  he  may  give  us  the  new  poetic  drama 
for  which  our  idealists  are  sighing.  He  will 
choose  his  themes,  I  take  it,  from  legend,  or  from 


396  PLAY-MAKING 

the  domain  of  pure  fantasy  —  themes  which  can 
be  steeped  from  first  to  last  in  an  atmosphere  of 
poetry,  as  Tristan  und  Isolde  is  steeped  in  an  at- 
mosphere of  music.  Of  historic  themes,  I  would 
counsel  this  hypothetical  genius  to  beware.  If 
there  are  any  which  can  fittingly  be  steeped  in  a 
lyric  atmosphere,  they  are  to  be  sought  on  the 
outskirts  of  history,  or  in  the  debatable  land  be- 
tween history  and  legend.  The  formula  of  Schiller 
can  no  more  be  revived  than  the  formula  of  Chap- 
man or  of  Rowe.  That  a  new  historic  drama 
awaits  us  in  the  future,  I  have  little  doubt;  but 
it  will  be  written  in  prose.  The  idea  that  the 
poetry  of  drama  is  to  be  sought  specifically  in 
verse  has  long  ago  been  exploded  by  Ibsen  and 
Maeterlinck  and  D'Annunzio  and  Synge.  But 
there  are,  no  doubt,  themes  which  peculiarly  lend 
themselves  to  lyrico-dramatic  treatment,  and  we 
shall  all  welcome  the  poet  who  discovers  and 
develops  them. 

One  warning  let  me  add,  in  no  uncertain  voice. 
If  you  choose  to  write  a  blank-verse  play,  write 
it  in  blank  verse,  and  not  in  some  nondescript 
rhythm  which  is  one  long  series  of  jolts  and  pit- 
falls to  the  sensitive  ear.  Many  playwrights  have 
thought  by  this  means  to  escape  from  the  monotony 
of  blank  verse;  not  one  (that  I  ever  heard  of)  has 
achieved  even  temporary  success.  If  you  cannot 
save  your  blank  verse  from  monotony  without 
breaking  it  on  the  wheel,  that  merely  means  that 
you  cannot  write  blank  verse,  and  had  better  let  it 


DIALOGUE   AND    DETAILS         397 

alone.  Again,  in  spite  of  Elizabethan  precedent, 
there  is  nothing  more  irritating  on  the  modern 
stage  than  a  play  which  keeps  on  changing  from 
verse  to  prose  and  back  again.  It  gives  the  verse- 
passages  an  air  of  pompous  self-consciousness. 
We  seem  to  hear  the  author  saying,  as  he  shifts 
his  gear,  "  Look  you  now !  I  am  going  to  be 
eloquent  and  impressive !  "  The  most  destructive 
fault  a  dramatist  can  commit,  in  my  judgment,  is 
to  pass,  in  the  same  work  of  art,  from  one  plane 
of  convention  to  another.1 

We  must  now  consider  for  a  moment  the  ques- 
tion —  if  question  it  can  be  called  —  of  the  solilo- 
quy and  the  aside.  The  example  of  Ibsen  has 
gone  far  towards  expelling  these  slovenlinesses 
from  the  work  of  all  self-respecting  playwrights. 

1  Mr.  Israel  Zangwill,  in  his  symbolic  play,  The  War- 
God,  has  put  blank  verse  to  what  I  believe  to  be  a  new  use, 
with  noteworthy  success.  He  writes  in  very  strict  measure, 
but  without  the  least  inversion  or  inflation,  without  a  touch 
of  Elizabethan,  or  conventionally  poetic,  diction.  He  is  thus 
enabled  to  use  the  most  modern  expressions,  and  even 
slang,  without  incongruity ;  while  at  the  same  time  he  can 
give  rhetorical  movement  to  the  speeches  of  his  symbolic 
personages,  and,  in  passages  of  argument,  can  achieve  that 
clash  of  measured  phrase  against  measured  phrase  which 
the  Greeks  called  "  stichomythy,"  and  which  the  French 
dramatist  sometimes  produces  in  rapid  rapier-play  with  the 
Alexandrine.  Mr.  ZangwilPs  practice  is  in  absolute  contra- 
diction of  the  principle  above  suggested  that  blank  verse,  to 
be  justified  in  drama,  ought  to  be  lyrical.  His  verse  is  a 
product  of  pure  intellect  and  wit,  without  a  single  lyric  ac- 
cent. It  is  measured  prose;  if  it  ever  tries  to  be  more,  it 
fails.  I  think,  then,  that  he  has  shown  a  new  use  for  blank 
verse,  in  rhetorico-symbolic  drama.  But  it  is  no  small  lit- 
erary feat  to  handle  the  measure  as  he  does. 


398  PLAY-MAKING 

But  theorists  spring  up  every  now  and  then  to 
defend  them.  "  The  stage  is  the  realm  of  con- 
vention," they  argue.  "  If  you  accept  a  room 
with  its  fourth  wall  removed,  which  nothing  short 
of  an  earthquake  could  render  possible  in  real  life, 
why  should  you  jib  at  the  idea  —  in  which,  after 
all,  there  is  nothing  absolutely  impossible  —  that 
a  man  should  utter  aloud  the  thoughts  that  are 
passing  through  his  mind  ?  " 

It  is  all  a  question,  once  more,  of  planes  of 
convention.  No  doubt  there  is  an  irreducible 
minimum  of  convention  in  all  drama;  but  how 
strange  is  the  logic  which  leaps  from  that  postulate 
to  the  assertion  that,  if  we  admit  a  minimum,  we 
cannot,  or  ought  not  to,  exclude  a  maximum! 
There  are  plays  which  do  not,  and  there  are  plays 
which  do,  set  forth  to  give  as  nearly  as  possible 
an  exact  reproduction  of  the  visual  and  auditory 
realities  of  life.  In  the  Elizabethan  theatre,  with 
its  platform  stage  under  the  open  sky,  any  pictorial 
exactness  of  reproduction  was  clearly  impossible. 
Its  fundamental  conditions  necessitated  very 
nearly  *  a  maximum  of  convention ;  therefore  such 
conventions  as  blank  verse  and  the  soliloquy  were 
simply  of  a  piece  with  all  the  rest.  In  the  theatre 
of  the  eighteenth  century  and  early  nineteenth,  the 
proscenium  arch  —  the  frame  of  the  picture  — 
made  pictorial  realism  theoretically  possible.  But 
no  one  recognized  the  possibility;  and  indeed,  on 

1  Not  quite.  The  drama  of  some  Oriental  peoples  rec- 
ognizes conventions  which  the  Elizabethans  did  not  admit 


DIALOGUE   AND    DETAILS         399 

a  candle-lit  stage,  it  would  have  been  extremely 
difficult.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  Elizabethan  plat- 
form survived  in  the  shape  of  a  long  "  apron," 
projecting  in  front  of  the  proscenium,  on  which 
the  most  important  parts  of  the  action  took  place. 
The  characters,  that  is  to  say,  were  constantly 
stepping  out  of  the  frame  of  the  picture;  and  while 
this  visual  convention  maintained  itself,  there 
was  nothing  inconsistent  or  jarring  in  the  auditory 
convention  of  the  soliloquy.  Only  in  the  last  quar- 
ter of  the  nineteenth  century  did  new  methods  of 
lighting,  combined  with  new  literary  and  artistic 
influences,  complete  the  evolutionary  process,  and 
lead  to  the  withdrawal  of  the  whole  stage  —  the 
whole  dramatic  domain  —  within  the  frame  of  the 
picture.  It  was  thus  possible  to  reduce  visual 
convention  to  a  minimum  so  trifling  that  in  a  well- 
set  "  interior  "  it  needs  a  distinct  effort  of  attention 
to  be  conscious  of  it  at  all.  In  fact,  if  we  come 
to  think  of  it,  the  removal  of  the  fourth  wall  is 
scarcely  to  be  classed  as  a  convention ;  for  in  real 
life,  as  we  do  not  happen  to  have  eyes  in  the  back 
of  our  heads,  we  are  never  visually  conscious  of 
all  four  walls  of  a  room  at  once.  If,  then,  in  a 
room  that  is  absolutely  real,  we  see  a  man  who 
(in  all  other  respects)  strives  to  be  equally  real, 
suddenly  begin  to  expound  to  himself  aloud,  in 
good,  set  terms,  his  own  emotions,  motives,  or  pur- 
poses, we  instantly  plump  down  from  one  plane  of 
convention  to  another,  and  receive  a  disagreeable 
jar  to  our  sense  of  reality.  Up  to  that  moment, 


400  PLAY-MAKING 

all  the  efforts  of  author,  producer,  and  actor  have 
centred  in  begetting  in  us  a  particular  order  of 
illusion ;  and  lo !  the  effort  is  suddenly  abandoned, 
and  the  illusion  shattered  by  a  crying  unreality. 
In  modern  serious  drama,  therefore,  the  soliloquy 
can  only  be  regarded  as  a  disturbing  anachronism.1 
The  physical  conditions  which  tended  to  banish 
it  from  the  stage  were  reinforced  by  the  growing 
perception  of  its  artistic  slovenliness.  It  was  found 
that  the  most  delicate  analyses  could  be  achieved 
without  its  aid;  and  it  became  a  point  of  honour 
with  the  self-respecting  artist  to  accept  a  condition 
which  rendered  his  material  somewhat  harder  of 
manipulation,  indeed,  but  all  the  more  tempting 
to  wrestle  with  and  overcome.  A  drama  with 
soliloquies  and  asides  is  like  a  picture  with  in- 
scribed labels  issuing  from  the  mouths  of  the 
figures.  In  that  way,  any  bungler  can  reveal  what 
is  passing  in  the  minds  of  his  personages.  But  the 
glorious  problem  of  the  modern  playwright  is  to 
make  his  characters  reveal  the  inmost  workings  of 
their  souls  without  saying  or  doing  anything  that 
they  would  not  say  or  do  in  the  real  world.2 

1  A  conversation  on  the  telephone  often  provides  a  con- 
venient and  up-to-date  substitute  for  a  soliloquy;  but  that 
is  an  expedient  which  ought  not  to  be  abused. 

1  The  soliloquy  is  often  not  only  slovenly,  but  a  gratui- 
tous and  unnecessary  slovenliness.  In  Les  Corbeaux,  by 
Henry  Becque,  produced  in  1889,  there  occur  two  soliloquies 
—  one  by  Teissier  (Act  ii.,  Scene  3),  the  other  by  Madame 
de  Saint-Genis  (Act  iii.,  Scene  ip)  —  either  or  both  of  which 
could  be  omitted  without  leaving  any  sensible  gap.  The 
latter  is  wholly  superfluous,  the  former  conveys  some  in- 
formation which  might  have  been  taken  for  granted,  and 


DIALOGUE   AND    DETAILS         401 

There  are  degrees,  however,  even  in  the  make- 
shift and  the  slovenly;  and  not  all  lapses  into 
anachronism  are  equally  to  be  condemned.  One 
thing  is  so  patent  as  to  call  for  no  demonstration : 
to  wit,  that  the  aside  is  ten  times  worse  than  the 
soliloquy.  It  is  always  possible  that  a  man  might 
speak  his  thought,  but  it  is  glaringly  impossible 
that  he  should  speak  it  so  as  to  be  heard  by  the 
audience  and  not  heard  by  others  on  the  stage.  In 
French  light  comedy  and  farce  of  the  mid-nine- 
teenth century,  the  aside  is  abused  beyond  even 
the  license  of  fantasy.  A  man  will  speak  an  aside 
of  several  lines  over  the  shoulder  of  another  person 
whom  he  is  embracing.  Not  infrequently  in  a  con- 
versation between  two  characters,  each  will  com- 
ment aside  on  every  utterance  of  the  other,  before 
replying  to  it.  The  convenience  of  this  method  of 
proceeding  is  manifest.  It  is  as  though  the  author 
stood  by  and  delivered  a  running  commentary  on 
the  secret  motives  and  designs  of  his  characters. 
But  it  is  such  a  crying  confession  of  unreality  that, 
on  the  English-speaking  stage,  at  any  rate,  it  would 
scarcely  be  tolerated  to-day,  even  in  farce.  In 
serious  modern  drama  the  aside  is  now  practically 
unknown.  It  is  so  obsolete,  indeed,  that  actors 
are  puzzled  how  to  handle  it,  and  audiences  what 
to  make  of  it.  In  an  ambitious  play  produced  at 
a  leading  London  theatre  about  ten  years  ago,  a 

could,  in  any  case,  have  been  conveyed  without  difficulty  in 
some  other  way.  Yet  Becque  was,  in  his  day,  regarded  as  a 
quite  advanced  technician. 


402  PLAY-MAKING 

lady,  on  leaving  the  stage,  announced,  in  an  aside, 
her  intention  of  drowning  herself,  and  several 
critics,  the  next  day,  not  understanding  that  she 
was  speaking  aside,  severely  blamed  the  gentleman 
who  was  on  the  stage  with  her  for  not  frustrating 
her  intention.  About  the  same  time,  there  oc- 
curred one  of  the  most  glaring  instances  within  my 
recollection  of  inept  conventionalism.  The  hero 
of  the  play  was  Eugene  Aram.  Alone  in  his  room 
at  dead  of  night,  Aram  heard  Houseman  breaking 
open  the  outside  shutters  of  the  window.  Design- 
ing to  entrap  the  robber,  what  did  he  do?  He 
went  up  to  the  window  and  drew  back  the  curtains, 
with  a  noise  loud  enough  to  be  heard  in  the  next 
parish.  It  was  inaudible,  however,  to  Houseman 
on  the  other  side  of  the  shutters.  He  proceeded 
with  his  work,  opened  the  window,  and  slipped 
in,  Aram  hiding  in  the  shadow.  Then,  while 
Houseman  peered  about  him  with  his  lantern,  not 
six  feet  from  Aram,  and  actually  between  him 
and  the  audience,  Aram  indulged  in  a  long  and 
loud  monologue  as  to  whether  he  should  shoot 
Houseman  or  not,  ending  with  a  prayer  to  heaven 
to  save  him  from  more  blood-guiltiness !  Such  are 
the  childish  excesses  to  which  a  playwright  will 
presently  descend  when  once  he  begins  to  dally 
with  facile  convention. 

An  aside  is  intolerable  because  it  is  not  heard 
by  the  other  person  on  the  stage:  it  outrages 
physical  possibility.  An  overheard  soliloquy,  on 
the  other  hand,  is  intolerable  because  it  is  heard. 


DIALOGUE   AND    DETAILS         403 

It  keeps  within  the  bounds  of  physical  possibility, 
but  it  stultifies  the  only  logical  excuse  for  the 
soliloquy,  namely,  that  it  is  an  externalization  of 
thought  which  would  in  reality  remain  unuttered. 
This  point  is  so  clear  that  I  need  not  insist  upon  it. 
Are  there,  in  modern  drama,  any  admissible 
soliloquies?  A  few  brief  ejaculations  of  joy,  or 
despair,  are,  of  course,  natural  enough,  and  no 
one  will  cavil  at  them.  The  approach  of  mental 
disease  is  often  marked  by  a  tendency  to  unre- 
strained loquacity,  which  goes  on  even  while  the 
sufferer  is  alone;  and  this  distressing  symptom 
may,  on  rare  occasions,,  be  put  to  artistic  use. 
Short  of  actual  derangement,  however,  there  are 
certain  states  of  nervous  surexcitation  which  cause 
even  healthy  people  to  talk  to  themselves;  and  if 
an  author  has  the  skill  to  make  us  realize  that  his 
character  is  passing  through  such  a  crisis,  he  may 
risk  a  soliloquy,  not  only  without  reproach,  but 
with  conspicuous  psychological  justification.  In 
the  third  act  of  Clyde  Fitch's  play,  The  Girl  with 
the  Green  Eyes,  there  is  a  daring  attempt  at  such 
a  soliloquy,  where  Jinny  says :  "  Good  Heavens ! 
why  am  I  maudling  on  like  this  to  myself  out  loud  ? 
It 's  really  nothing  —  Jack  will  explain  once  more 
that  he  can't  explain  "  —  and  so  on.  Whether  the 
attempt  justified  itself  or  not  would  depend  largely 
on  the  acting.  In  any  case,  it  is  clear  that  the 
author,  though  as  a  rule  somewhat  lax  in  his 
craftsmanship,  was  here  aiming  at  psychological 
truth. 


404  PLAY-MAKING 

A  word  must  be  said  as  to  a  special  case  of  the 
soliloquy  —  the  letter  which  a  person  speaks  aloud 
as  he  writes  it,  or  reads  over  to  himself  aloud. 
This  is  a  convention  to  be  employed  as  sparingly 
as  possible;  but  it  is  not  exactly  on  a  level  with 
the  ordinary  soliloquy.  A  letter  has  an  actual 
objective  existence.  The  words  are  formulated  in 
the  character's  mind  and  are  supposed  to  be  ex- 
ternalized, even  though  the  actor  may  not  really 
write  them  on  the  paper.  Thus  the  letter  has,  so 
to  speak,  the  same  right  to  come  to  the  knowledge 
of  the  audience  as  any  other  utterance.  It  is,  in 
fact,  part  of  the  dialogue  of  the  play,  only  that 
it  happens  to  be  inaudible.  A  soliloquy,  on  the 
other  hand,  has  no  real  existence.  It  is  a  purely 
artificial  unravelling  of  motive  or  emotion,  which, 
nine  times  out  of  ten,  would  not  become  articulate 
at  all,  even  in  the  speaker's  brain  or  heart.  Thus 
it  is  by  many  degrees  a  greater  infraction  of  the 
surface  texture  of  life  than  the  spoken  letter,  which 
we  may  call  inadvisable  rather  than  inadmissible. 

Some  theorists  carry  their  solicitude  for  surface 
reality  to  such  an  extreme  as  to  object  to  any  com- 
munication between  two  characters  which  is  not 
audible  to  every  one  on  the  stage.  This  is  a  very 
idle  pedantry.  The  difference  between  a  conversa- 
tion in  undertones  and  a  soliloquy  or  aside  is 
abundantly  plain:  the  one  occurs  every  hour  of 
the  day,  the  other  never  occurs  at  all.  When  two 
people,  or  a  group,  are  talking  among  themselves, 
unheard  by  the  others  on  the  stage,  it  requires 


DIALOGUE   AND    DETAILS         405 

a  special  effort  to  remember  that,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  the  others  probably  do  hear  them.  Even  if 
the  scene  be  unskilfully  arranged,  it  is  not  the 
audibility  of  one  group,  but  the  inaudibility  of 
the  others,  that  is  apt  to  strike  us  as  unreal. 

This  is  not  the  only  form  of  technical  pedantry 
that  one  occasionally  encounters.  Some  years  ago, 
a  little  band  of  playwrights  and  would-be  play- 
wrights, in  fanatical  reaction  against  the  Sardou 
technic,  tried  to  lay  down  a  rule  that  no  room 
on  the  stage  must  ever  have  more  than  one  door, 
and  that  no  letter  must  ever  enter  into  the  mechan- 
ism of  a  play.  I  do  not  know  which  contention 
was  the  more  ridiculous. 

Nothing  is  commoner  in  modern  house-planning 
than  rooms  which  have  at  least  two  doors  and 
a  French  window.  We  constantly  see  rooms  or 
halls  which,  if  transported  to  the  stage,  would 
provide  three  or  four  entrances  and  exits;  and 
this  is  even  more  true  of  the  "  central  heated  " 
houses  of  America  than  of  English  houses.  The 
technical  purists  used  especially  to  despise  the 
French  window  —  a  harmless,  agreeable  and  very 
common  device.  Why  the  playwright  should  make 
"  one  room  one  door "  an  inexorable  canon  of 
art  is  more  than  human  reason  can  divine.  There 
are  cases,  no  doubt,  in  which  probability  demands 
that  the  dramatist  should  be  content  with  one 
practicable  opening  to  his  scene,  and  should  plan 
his  entrances  and  exits  accordingly.  This  is  no 


406  PLAY-MAKING 

such  great  feat  as  might  be  imagined.  Indeed  a 
playwright  will  sometimes  deliberately  place  a 
particular  act  in  a  room  with  one  door,  because 
it  happens  to  facilitate  the  movement  he  desires. 
It  is  absurd  to  lay  down  any  rule  in  the  matter, 
other  than  that  the  scene  should  provide  a  probable 
locality  for  whatever  action  is  to  take  place  in  it. 
I  am  the  last  to  defend  the  old  French  farce  with 
its  ten  or  a  dozen  doors  through  which  the  char- 
acters kept  scuttling  in  and  out  like  rabbits  in 
a  warren.  But  the  fact  that  we  are  tired  of  con- 
ventional laxity  is  no  good  reason  for  rushing  to 
the  other  extreme  of  conventional  and  hampering 
austerity. 

Similarly,  because  the  forged  will  and  the  lost 
"  marriage  lines  "  have  been  rightly  relegated  to 
melodrama,  is  there  any  reason  why  we  should 
banish  from  the  stage  every  form  of  written  docu- 
ment ?  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw,  in  an  article  celebrating 
the  advent  of  the  new  technic,  once  wrote,  "  Now- 
adays an  actor  cannot  open  a  letter  or  toss  off 
somebody  else's  glass  of  poison  without  having  to 
face  a  brutal  outburst  of  jeering."  What  an  ex- 
travagance to  bracket  as  equally  exploded  absurdi- 
ties the  opening  of  a  letter  and  the  tossing  off 
of  the  wrong  glass  of  poison !  Letters —  more  's 
the  pity  —  play  a  gigantic  part  in  the  economy  of 
modern  life.  The  General  Post  Office  is  a  vast 
mechanism  for  the  distribution  of  tragedy,  comedy, 
melodrama,  and  farce  throughout  the  country  and 
throughout  the  world.  To  whose  door  has  not 


DIALOGUE   AND    DETAILS         407 

Destiny  come  in  the  disguise  of  a  postman,  and 
slipped  its  decree,  with  a  double  rat-tat,  into  the 
letter-box?  Whose  heart  has  not  sickened  as  he 
heard  the  postman's  footstep  pass  his  door  without 
pausing?  Whose  hand  has  not  trembled  as  he 
opened  a  letter?  Whose  face  has  not  blanched  as 
he  took  in  its  import,  almost  without  reading  the 
words?  Why,  I  would  fain  know,  should  our 
stage-picture  of  life  be  falsified  by  the  banishment 
of  the  postman?  Even  the  revelation  brought 
about  by  the  discovery  of  a  forgotten  letter  or 
bundle  of  letters  is  not  an  infrequent  incident  of 
daily  life.  Why  should  it  be  tabu  on  the  stage? 
Because  the  French  dramatist,  forty  years  ago, 
would  sometimes  construct  a  Chinese-puzzle  play 
around  some  stolen  letter  or  hidden  document,  are 
we  to  suffer  no  "  scrap  of  paper  "  to  play  any 
part  whatever  in  English  drama?  Even  the 
Hebrew  sense  of  justice  would  recoil  from  such 
a  conclusion.  It  would  be  a  case  of  "  The  fathers 
have  eaten  sour  grapes,  and  other  people's  chil- 
dren must  pay  the  penalty."  Against  such  whim- 
sies of  reactionary  purism,  the  playwright's  sole 
and  sufficient  safeguard  is  a  moderate  exercise  of 
common  sense. 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL    NOTE 

IT  is,  of  course,  needless  to  indicate  editions  of  the 
English  classical  plays,  from  Shakespeare  to  Tenny- 
son, cited  in  the  foregoing  pages.  French  and  German 
plays,  too,  can  always  be  easily  procured  —  except, 
perhaps,  one  or  two  of  Sardou's.  But  it  is  sometimes 
hard  to  ascertain  whether  a  recent  English  or  Ameri- 
can play  has  or  has  not  been  published.  It  seemed 
advisable,  therefore,  to  draw  up  the  following  list  for 
the  guidance  of  students,  and  to  include  in  it  some 
translations  of  foreign  works :  — 

AESCHYLUS 

Agamemnon,   see    The   House   of  Atreus,   translated   by 
E.  D.  A.  Morshead.    London :  Macmillan,  1901. 

GABRIELE  D'ANNUNZIO 

Gioconda,  translated  by  Arthur  Symons.    London:  Heine- 
mann,  1901;    New  York:  R.  H.  Russell,  1901. 

F.  ANSTEY 
The  Brass  Bottle.    London:  Heinemann,  1911. 

ELIZABETH  BAKER 
Chains.    London:  Sidgwick  and  Jackson,  1911. 

H.  GRANVILLE  BARKER 
Three  Plays:  The  Marrying  of  Anne  Leete  —  The  Voysey 

Inheritance  —  Waste.     London  :   Sidgwick  and  Jackson, 

1909;  New  York:  Kennerley. 
The  Madias  House.    London :  Sidgwick  and  Jackson,  1911 ; 

New  York :  Kennerley. 
Prunella    (with    Laurence    Housman).     London:    A.    H. 

Bullen,  1906. 

LADY  BELL 

The  Way  the  Money  Goes.    London :  Sidgwick  and  Jack- 
son, 1910. 

409 


410         BIBLIOGRAPHICAL   NOTE 
ARNOLD  BENNETT 

What  the  Public  Wants.     London:  Frank  Palmer,  1910; 

New  York:   George  H.  Doran  Company,  1910. 
The  Honeymoon,  published  in  McClure's  Magazine,  New 

York,  1911. 

RUDOLF  BESIER 

Don.     London :  T.  Fisher  Unwin ;    New  York :  Duffield, 
1910. 

BjORNSTJERNE   BjORNSON 

A  Bankruptcy.     No  English  translation.     German  transla- 
tion Ein  Fallissement,  Reclam's  Universal-Bibliothek. 

R.  C.  CARTON 

Dramatic  Works  in  course  of  publication.     London  and 
New  York:  French. 

C.  HADDON  CHAMBERS 

Captain  Swift.     London  and  New  York:  French,  1902. 
The  Awakening.    London :  Heinemann,  1902 ;  W.  H.  Baker, 
1903. 

EURIPIDES 

Hippolytus  and  Medea,  translated  by  Gilbert  Murray.  Lon- 
don :   George  Allen. 

JAMES  BERNARD  FAGAN 

The  Prayer  of  the  Sword.  London :  Brimley  Johnson,  1904. 
The  Earth.    London:  T.  Fisher  Unwin;  New  York:  Duf- 
field, 1910. 

CLYDE  FITCH 

Beau  Brummel.    New  York :  John  Lane,  1908. 
The  Climbers,  1906 ;   The  Girl  with  the  Green  Eyes,  1905 ; 
The  Truth,  1907,  New  York:  Macmillan. 

JOHN  GALSWORTHY 

Plays:   The  Silver  Box  —  Joy  —  Strife.     London:  Duck- 
worth, 1909 ;    New  York :  Putnam. 
Justice.    London:  Duckworth,  1910;   New  York:  Scribner. 

SIR  WILLIAM  S.  GILBERT 

Pygmalion  and  Galatea:  Original  Plays.    London:  Chatto 
and  Windus. 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL    NOTE         411 

SYDNEY  GRUNDY 

A  Pair  of  Spectacles.    London  and  New  York:  French, 
1899. 

GERHART  HAUPTMANN 
Hannele,  translated  by  William  Archer.    London :  Heine- 

mann,  1907. 

The    Weavers,   translated   by    Mary   Morison.      London : 
Heinemann,  191 1 ;    New  York :  Huebsch. 

"  JOHN  OLIVER  HOBBES  " 
The  Ambassador.    London:  T.  Fisher  Unwin,  1892;  New 

York :  Stokes. 
The  Wisdom  of  the  Wise.  London :  T.  Fisher  Unwin,  1901. 

"  ANTHONY  HOPE  " 

The  Adventure  of  Lady  Ursula.    New  York:  R.  H.  Rus- 
sell, 1898,  French,  1910. 

HENRIK  IBSEN 

Dramatic  Works:  Collected  Edition.    London:  Heinemann, 
New  York:  Scribner. 

J.  K.  JEROME 

The  Passing  of  the  Third  Floor  Back.     London :  Hurst 
and  Blackett,  1910;    New  York:  Dodd,  Mead. 

HENRY  ARTHUR  JONES 
Plays  published  in  London  and  New  York:  Macmillan. 

MAURICE  MAETERLINCK 

Monna    Vanna,    translated    by    Alfred    Sutro.      London: 
George  Allen,  1904;    New  York:  Dodd,  Mead. 

W.  SOMERSET  MAUGHAM 
A  Man  of  Honour.    London :  Heinemann. 

WILLIAM  VAUGHN  MOODY 
The  Great  Divide.     New  York :  Macmillan,  1909. 
The  Faith  Healer  (Revised  Edition).1    New  York:  Mac- 
millan, 1910. 

The  remarks  in  the  text  (p.  379)  were  based  on  the  first 
edition,  published  by  Houghton,  Mifflin,  1909.  I  did  not  know 
of  the  revised  edition  until  this  book  was  in  type. 


412          BIBLIOGRAPHICAL    NOTE 

GILBERT  MURRAY 
Carlyon  Sahib.    London :  Heinemann,  1900. 

SIR  ARTHUR  PINERO 

Plays  published  in  London:  Heinemann.  New  York: 
W.  H.  Baker  &  Co.  (except  The  Benefit  of  the  Doubt 
and  The  Princess  and  the  Butterfly,  published  by 
French). 

ELIZABETH  ROBINS 
Votes  for  Women.    London :  Mills  and  Boon,  1909. 

GEORGE  BERNARD  SHAW 

Plays  published  in  London:  Constable;  New  York: 
Brentano. 

EDWARD  SHELDON 
The  Nigger.     New  York:  Macmillan,  1910. 

SOPHOCLES 

Oedipus,  King  of  Thebes,  translated  by  Gilbert  Murray. 
London:  George  Allen,  1911. 

ALFRED  SUTRO 

The  Builder  of  Bridges.  London  and  New  York :  French, 
1909. 

OSCAR  WILDE 
Collected  Works.     London :  Methuen ;  Boston :  John  W. 

Luce  &  Company. 
Lady  Windermere's  Fan,  5th  edition.     London :  Methuen, 

1911. 

A  Woman  of  No  Importance,    London :  John  Lane,  1894. 
The  Ideal  Husband.    London  :  Smithers,  1899. 
The  Importance  of  Being  Earnest.     London :    Smithers, 

1809- 

ISRAEL  ZANGWILL 

The  War  God.  London:  Heinemann,  1911;  New  York: 
Macmillan,  1912. 


INDEX 


Act-division,  the,  131-145 
Act-structure,  136,  142,  176 
Action  v.  Character,  22 
Adrienne  Lecouvreur,  213,  217 
Adventure  of  Lady  Ursula,  The,  192 
Aeschylus,  29,  172,  238 
Agamemnon,  29,  172,  238 
Agatha,  242 
L'Aiglon,  254 
Albery,  James,  383 
Ambassador,  The,  120,  389 
Amoureuse,  138 
"Anagnorisis,"  260,  272 
Andromaque,  31 
Anna  Karfnine,  37 
D'Annunzio,  105,  326,  396 
Anstey,  F.,  365 

Anticlimax,  43,  62,  235,  324-33° 
Antony  and  Cleopatra,  32,  377,  395 
Aristotle,  4,  22,  23,  85,  137,  261,  275, 

323,  34i 
Asides,  397,  401 
As  You  Like  It,  16,  30,  88 
Augier,  225,  240 
Awakening,  The,  337 

B 

Baker,  Elizabeth,  49 

Bankruptcy,  A,  40 

Barker,  H.  Granville,  55,  63,  116, 

126,  127,  140,  281,  283,  329,  360, 

37? 

Barrie,  J.  M.,  39,  160,  283,  284 
Bartholomew  Fair,  19 
Beau  Brummel,  349 
Becket,  248,  249 

Becque,  42,  76,  116,  138,  228,  400 
Bell,  Lady,  49,  238 
Bella  Donna,  375,  376,  377 
Benefit  of  the  Doubt,  The,  117,  138, 

184,  208,  222,  326 


Ben-Hur,  255 

Bennett,  Arnold,  284,  301,  365 

Bernstein,  267,  345 

Bertrand  et  Raton,  213 

Besier,  Rudolf,  116 

Bjornson,  40,  80 

Blanchette,  367 

Blank-verse,  26,  392-397 

Blind-alley  Themes,  62,  267,   340- 

344 

Blot  in  the  Scutcheon,  The,  394 
Blue  Bird,  The,  283 
Boucicault,  Dion,  79,  383 
Bradley,  Andrew,  353 
Brand,  101,  377 
Brass  Bottle,  The,  365 
Brebis  de  Panurge,  Les,  17 
Brieux,  16,  18,  233,  296,  367,  379 
Browning,  394 
Brunetiere,  28-36,  40,  108 
Builder  of  Bridges,  The,  272,  338 
Byron,  H.  J.,  383 


Candida,  31,  51,  116,  138,  235,  295, 

362 

Captain  Swift,  287 
Carlyon  Sahib,  263 
Carrying-forward  interest,  175-186, 

243 

Carson,  Murray,  124 
Carton,  R.  C.,  180,  222,  284 
Case  of  Rebellious  Susan,  The,  116 
Caste,  16,  79,  138 
Chains,  49 

Chambers,  Haddon,  287,  337 
Chance,  285,  360 
Chapman,  396 
Character,  9,  22,  56,  114,  173,  243, 

371-380;   more  vital  than  action, 

22;  development  in,  373 
Characters,  essential  and  auxiliary, 

74 


413 


414 


INDEX 


Charles  I.,  277 

Charlie's  Aunt,  284 

Chasse  aux  Corbeaux,  La,  17 

Children  of  the  Ghetto,  204 

Choice  between  alternatives,  51 

Chorus,  104,  135 

Cigale  chet  les  Fourmis,  La,  17 

City,  The,  302 

Clarissa  Harlowe,  31 

Climax,  43,  62,  321-330 

Climbers,  The,  118,  361 

Coincidence,  121,  245,  285;  long  arm 

of,  287 

Collins,  J.  Churton,  24 
Comedy  of  Errors,  The,  200 
"  Commedia  dell'  arte,"  55 
Confidants,  105 
Conflict,  Brunetiere's  theory  of,  28- 

36 

Congreve,  16,  213,  382,  388 
Convention,  Planes  of,  398-400 
Conversion,  33i~339 
Corbeaux,  Les,  42,  116,  400 
Coriolanus,  51,  98 
Course  du  Flambeau,  La,  232 
Craigie,  Mrs.,  120,  389 
Crisis  essence  of  drama,  36-42,  137, 

?3.8 
Crisis,  growth   and   subsidence  of, 

321 

Crispness  of  touch,  42-47,  50 
Curel,  F.  de,  21,  57,  258,  379 
Curiosity,  42,  156-174,  307 
"Curtains,"  328 
Cyrano  de  Bergerac,  76 


Dandy  Dick,  284 

Death  as  solution,  353 

Death  of  Ivan  Ilytch,  The,  30 

Degenerates,  The,  215 

Denise,  362 

"Denouement,"  331 

Devil's  Disciple,  The,  113,  309,  362 

Dialogue,  278,  381-392 

Dickens,  38 

Diplomacy,  265 

Divorfonsl  113 

Doctor's  Dilemma,  The,  127, 132,  295 

Doll's  House,  A,  21,  49,  54,  100,  105, 

108,  127,  129,  138,  171,  197,  230, 

264,  280,  355,  367,  373 


Don,  116 

Don  Juan,  377 

Donnay,  41,  313,  327,  330 

Don  Quixote,  22 

Dora,  264 

Double  Dealer,  The,  213 

Douloureuse,  La,  41,  313,  327,  330 

Doyle,  Sir  Arthur,  263 

Dramatic  and  undramatic,    28-52, 

97,  230-246 

Dryden,  107,  199,  201,  332,  372 
Duel,  Le,  391 
Duels,  357 

Duke  of  KiUiekrankie,  The,  336 
Dumzsfils,  25, 31,  55,  60, 61,  85, 117, 

138,  144,  201,  357,  362 
Dumas  pire,  112,  145,  149,  179,  213 
Du  Maurier,  Major,  18 
Dynasts,  The,  14 

E 

Earth,  The,  301 

Edward  II.,  238 

Egge,  Peter,  181,  198,  311 

"Einleitende  Akkord,"  90-100,  116, 

119 

Eliot,  George,  70 
Emperor  and  Galilean,  101,  252 
Enemy  of  the  People,  An,  76,  101, 

107,  116,  144,  194,  264,  363,  377 
Englishman's  Home,  An,  18 
L'Enigme,  306 
Entrances,  55,  405 
L'Enoers  d'une  Sainte,  21 
"Erregende  Moment,"  151-155,  193 
Essay  of  Dramatic  Poesy,  107,  199, 

201,  332 
Etherege,  382 
L'Etrangere,  357 
Euphuism,  381 

Euripides,  31,  87,  99,  104,  135,  237 
"  Eusynopton,"  149 
Exile,  The,  253 
Exits,  55,  405 
Expectancy,  127,  259 
Exposition,  oo,  95-110,  110-123 
Extempore  acting,  55 


Pagan,  James  B.,  35,  211,  301,  375, 
379 


INDEX 


415 


Faith  Healer,  The,  379 

Falstaff,  22,  96,  377 

Farquhar,  382 

Fedora,  217 

Fielding,  70 

"Fingering  of  the  dramatist,"  the, 

46 
Fitch,  Clyde,  42,  57,  118,  139,  302, 

349,  350,  361,  364,  378,  403 
Fires  of  Fate,  The,  263 
Ford,  386 

Foreshadowing,  92,  175-186 
Fossiles,  Les,  258 
Fourchambault,  Les,  225,  239 
Francitton,  31,  138,  362 
Freytag,  98,  151,  189,  193 
Frith,  Walter,  288,  312 
From  Ibsen's  Workshop,  53 
Froufrou,  347 
Fyfe,  Hamilton,  211 


Galsworthy,  John,  18,  31,  55,  113, 
118,  138,  140,  283,  328,  360,  362, 
378 

Gay  Lord  Quex,  The,  31,  113,  218 

Genealogies,  145 

Getting  Married,  16,  54,  132-136 

Ghosts,  30,  76,  85,  91,  106,  188,  355 

Gilbert,  Sir  W.  S.,  273,  303 

Gioconda,  La,  105,  326 

Girl  with  the  Green  Eyes,  The,  350, 
379,  403 

Goldsmith,  112,  383 

Gorky,  19 

Grace,  338,  363 

Great  Divide,  The,  34,  345 

Griffith  Davenport,  254 

Grundy,  Sydney,  17,  215 


Hal6vy,  347 

Hamlet,  30,  75,  88,  94,  115,  134,  158, 

ISO,  195,  377 
Hannele,  31 

"Happy  ending,"  62,  176 
Hardy,  Thomas,  14,  39,  265,  287 
Harold,  249 
Harris,  Frank,  222 
Hauptmann,  19,  31,  190,  379 


Hedda  Gabler,  16,  25,  100,  109,  134, 

356,  377 
Heimat,  31,  362 
Heminge  and  Condell,  60 
Henderson,  Isaac,  221 
Henri  III.  et  sa  Cour,  179 
Her  Advocate,  312 
Hernani,  272 
Herne,  James  A.,  20,  254 
Hervieu,  61,  231,  296,  306,  379 
Hichens,  R.,  375,  379 
Hippolytus,  31,  237 
His  House  in  Order,  51,  120,  125, 

363. 
Historical  drama,  27,  157,  251-255, 

276,  277 

H.  M.  S.  Pinafore,  273 
Home  Secretary,  The,  222 
Honeymoon,  The,  284,  365 
Hope,  Anthony,  192,  284 
Horace,  4,  38,  138 
House  Opposite,  The,  118 
House  with  the  Green  Shutters,  The, 

3i,  39 

Housman,  Laurence,  116 
Howells,  W.  D.,  6 
Hugo,  Victor,  272 


Ibsen,  ii,  16,  21,  25,  30,  31,  40,  44, 
49,  Si,  S3,  59,  63,  67,  74,  79,  85,  91, 
98-110,  126,  127,  129,  131,  138, 
143,  145,  150,  185,  190,  194,  197, 
207,  219,  230,  253,  257,  264,  280, 
298,  334,  336,  355,  363,  373,  377f 
393,  390 

Ideal  Husband,  The,  300 

Idyll,  The,  181,  198,  311 

//  faut  qu'une  porte  soit  ouverte  on 
fermte,  17 

//  nefautjurer  de  rien,  17 

Importance  of  Being  Earnest,  The, 
"3,  138 

Impossible  effects,  66 

Interest,  156-174;  carrying  forward 
of,  175-186 

Invention  of  story,  24 

L'lnvitte,  21 

Iris,  61,  140,  190,  250,  362,  378 

Ironmaster,  The,  345 

Irony,  172,  205,  312,  314,  316 

Irving,  Sir  Henry,  159 


4i6 


INDEX 


Jerome,  J.  K.,  244,  288 
Johannisfeuer,  138,  362 
John  Gabriel  Borkman,  74,  1 10,  1 26, 

231.  355,  377 
John  Gilpin,  31 

"John  Oliver  Hobbes,"  120,  389 
Jones,  Henry  Arthur,  21,  55,  58, 116, 

139,  .217,  236,  267,  209,  311,  326, 

383 

Jonson,  Ben,  19,  78 
Julius  Caesar,  33,  98,  252 
Justice,  18,  360,  378 


King  Henry  VIII.,  104 

King  John,  252 

King  Lear,  30,  93,  114,  280,  377 

King  Richard  II.,  377 

King  Richard  III.,  3,  129 

Kinship,  complexities  of,  145-148 

Knowles,  Sheridan,  394 


Labiche,  141 

Lady  from  the  Sea,  The,  51,  74,  106, 

299,  334 

Lady  Huntworth's  Experiment,  284 
Lady  Inger  of  Gstraat,  207 
Lady  of  Lyons,  The,  344 
Lady  Windermere's  Fan,  177,   196, 

307,  350,  385 
Lamb,  77,  386,  394 
Landon,  Perceval,  118 
Lang,  Andrew,  24 
Last  of  the  Dandies,  The,  349 
Lavedan,  391 
League  of  Youth,  The,  40,  101,  103, 

186 

Lemaitre,  Jules,  148,  246 
Letters,  404,  406 
Letty,  292,  315,  324,  378 
Liars,  The,  299 
Little  Dorrit,  38 
Little  Eyolf,  44,  54,  67,  no,  138,  147, 

150,  299,  355 
Little  Father  of  the  Wilderness,  The, 

273 

Little  Mary,  160 
Logic,  61,  231-235,  296-304 


London  Assurance,  79,  383 

"Long  arm  of  coincidence,"  287 

Lord  and  Lady  Algy,  284 

Love's  Comedy,  101 

Lowell,  60 

Lyly,  381 

Lytton,  Bulwer,  79,  344,  383 

M 

Macbeth,  32,  92,  143,  159,  196,  209, 

377,  395 

McEvoy,  Charles,  192 
Madame  X.,  287 

Mademoiselle  de  Belle-Isle,  112,  213 
Madras  House,  The,  190,  330 
Maeterlinck,  47,  283,  342,  396 
Magda,  31,  362 
Magistrate,  The,  184,  284 
Maitre  d'Armes,  Le,  255 
Maitre  de  Forges,  Le,  345 
Makeshift  endings,  62,  324 
Man  of  Forty,  The,  288 
Man  of  Honor,  A,  257 
Marlowe,  238 

Marrying  of  Anne  Leete,  The,  281 
Marshall,  Robert,  336 
Master  Builder,  The,  100,  106,  no, 

138,  209,  355 
MaterniU,  16 

Matthews,  Brander,  167,  293,  392 
Maugham,  Somerset,  257,  338,  363 
Mayor  of  Casterbridge,  The,  39 
Measure  for  Measure,  341 
Medea,  237 
Meilhac,  347 
Menaechmi,  290 
Menander,  290 
Merchant  of  Venice,  The,  88,   194, 

264,  280,  377 
Meredith,  George,  387 
"Messenger-speech,"  45,  237 
Michael  and  his  Lost  Angel,  236 
Mid-Channel,  359,  378,  384 
Middlemarch,  37 

Midsummer  Night's  Dream,  A,  283 
Misalliance,  54 
Misanthrope,  Le,  377 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Daventry,  222 
Mrs.  Dane's  Defence,  217,  267,  326 
Mrs.  Warren's  Profession,  236,  270 
Mrs.  Willoughby's  Kiss,  289 
Modern  As  past  a,  A,  210 


INDEX 


Moliere,  n,  16,  31,  66,  126,  377 

Money,  79,  383 

Monna  Vanna,  342 

Monsieur  Alphonse,  138,  202 

Monsieur  Beaucaire,  273 

Moody,  William  Vaughn,  34,  343, 

379 

Moth  and  the  Flame,  The,  42 
Much  Ado  about  Nothing,  89 
Mummy  and  the  Humming-Bird,  The, 

221 

Murray,  Gilbert,  238,  260,  263 
Musset,  A.  de,  12 

N 

Narrative,  237,  238,  251 
Nachtasyl,  19 
Nero,  253 
Newcomes,  The,  39 
Nigger,  The,  366 
Niobe,  284 

Nomenclature,  76,  77 
Nos  Intimes,  214 

O 

Obstacle  essential  to  drama,  33 
Obstacle,  inadequate,  242,  313 
Oedipus  Rex,  29,  91,  129,  133-135, 

261,  282,  288,  290 
Ogilvie,  Stuart,  289 
Ohnet,  345 

Oliphant,  Mrs.,  166,  170 
Only  Way,  The,  125 
Osbourne,  Lloyd,  253,  273 
Othello,  16,  30,  43,  92,  in,  113,  114, 

171,  209,  217,  248,  264,  280 
Otway,  394 
Over-preparation,  213-224 


Pailleron,  55 

Pair  of  Spectacles,  A,  17 

Paolo  and  Francesca,  24,  32,  209,  395 

Paradise  Lost,  31 

Parisienne,  La,  76,  116,  138,  228 

Parker,  Louis  N.,  124,  242 

Passing  of  the  Third  Floor  Back,  244 

Peer  Gynt,  22,  76,  101,  377 

Peril,  214 

Peripety,  37,  260-274 

Peter  Pan,  283 


Phillips,  Stephen,  24,  32,  209,  252, 

395 

Picture-poster  situation,  50 
Pillars  of  Society,  68,  101,  103,  105, 

145,  151,  185,  219,  373 
Pinero,  Sir  Arthur,  31,  51,  55,  58,  61, 

63,  113,  117-124,  128,  131,  138, 

139,  140,  184,  190,  195,  207,  218, 

222,   257,   271,   284,   290,    299,  315, 
324,  358,  362,  363,  378,  383 

Platform  stage,  398 

Plausibility,   275;  its  three  planes, 

279 

Plautus,  290 
Porto-Riche,  G.  de,  379 
Pot-Bouille,  66 
Power  of  Darkness,  The,  239 
Prayer  of  the  Sword,  The,  35 
Preparation,  201-208 
Pretenders,  The,  31,  100,  102,  277 
Prince  Otto,  21 
Princess  and  the  Butterfly,  The,  207, 

325 

Princes se  Georges,  La,  61 
Prisoner  of  Zenda,  The,  125,  284 
Probability,  141,  275 
Profligate,  The,  195,  290,  299,  358, 

384 

Prologues,  87,  99,  104,  125 
Prunella,  116 
Psychology,  308,  374-380 
Pygmalion  and  Galatea,  303 


Queen  Mary,  104,  249,  394 
"Quiproquo,"  34 

R 

Racine,  31,  76,  377 

Raffles,  161,  192 

Red  Robe,  The,  192 

Revenge  theme,  346 

RfvolUe,  246 

Rivals,  The,  112 

Rise  of  Dick  Halward,  The,  244,  288 

Robertson,  T.  W.,  16,  79,  138,  381, 

383 

Robins,  Elizabeth,  20 
Robinson  Crusoe,  30 
Romeo  and  Juliet,  16,  32,  92,  96,  100, 

209,  286,  377 


4i8 


INDEX 


Rosemary,  124 

Rosmersholm,  59,  74,  76,  91, 100,  102, 

108,  in,  154,  190,  197,  337,  356, 

377 

Rostand,  76,  254 
Rowe,  396 
"Running-fire  plays,"  191 


Samson,  345 

Sarcey,  49,  66,  202,  214,  215,  225- 
229,  239,  246,  255,  256,  282,  293, 
374 

Sardou,  25,  55, 65, 113, 149,  213,  214, 
215,  264,  297,  341 

Satisfactory  ending,  208 

Scenarios,  54,  55 

Scene,  changes  of,  139 

"Scene  a  faire,"  183,  225-255;  log- 
ical, 230;  dramatic,  237;  structural, 
246;  psychological,  248;  historic, 
251 

"Scene  a  fuir,"  235,  256 

Schiller,  19,  396 

School  for  Scandal,  The,  32,  66,  166- 
171,  218 

Schoolmistress,  The,  184,  284 

Scott,  Clement,  49 

Scribe,  141,  213,  220 

Second  Mrs.  Tanqueray,  The,  120, 
124,  128,  292,  359 

Secrecy,  oath  of,  350 

Secrets,  161,  172,  305-317 

Self-sacrifice  theme,  347 

Shakespeare,  3,  n,  16,  30,  32,  43,  60, 
75,  78,  87-98,  131,  138,  143,  194, 
195,  196,  209,  248,  252,  264,  280, 
283,  286,  290,  341,  377,  393,  395 

Shakespearean  Tragedy,  353 

Shaw,  George  Bernard,  31,  51,  54, 
70,  71, 113, 116, 127, 131-136, 138, 
192,  203,  235,  244,  254,  270,  294, 
309,  362,  378,  406 

Sheldon,  Edward,  366 

Sheridan,  32,  66,  112,  166,  383 

Sherlock  Holmes,  192 

She  Stoops  to  Conquer,  na 

Shore  Acres,  20 

Silver  Box,  The,  113,  118,  138,  140, 
378 

Single-adventure  plays,  112,  184 

Soliloquy,  3,  26,  115,  397-405 


Sophocles,  29,  91, 129,  261,  282,  288, 

352 

Spiritisme,  297 
Stage-directions,  68 
Stage-management,  64 
Stayton,  Frank,  289 
Steele,  383, 
"Steigerung,"  189 
Stevenson,  R.  L.,  21 
"Stichomythia,"  33,  397 
Still  Waters  Run  Deep,  345 
Story-telling,  179 
Strafford,  394 
Strife,  18,  31,  362,  378 
Strong,  Austin,  253,  273 
Sudermann,  138,  362,  379 
Suicide,  356-362 
Supernatural,  the,  297-299 
Supplice  d'une  Femme,  Le,  85 
Supplices,  135 

Surprise,  43,  160,  167,  170,  305 
Suspense,  43,  50.    (See  Tension) 
Sutro,    Alfred,    55,    63,    139,    272, 

338 

Swinburne,  394 
Synge,  J.  M.,  388,  396 


Tableau-plays,  19 
Taming  of  the  Shrew,  The,  89,  na 
Tartufe,  Le,  16,  31,  66,  126 
Technik  des  Dramas,  98 
Tempest,  The,  88,  90,  97 
Tennyson,  104,  249,  394 
Tension,  193-200,  312,  316,  353 
Tess  o'  the  Durbermlles,  265,  287 
Thackeray,  39,  70,  79 
Theatricalism,  48-52,  73,  328 
Thunderbolt,  The,  122,  271 
Time,   "ideal"  treatment  of,   135, 

140;  unity  of,  133-135 
Tolstoy,  30,  239 
Tosca,  La,  341 
"Tragische  Schuld,"  354 
Tree,  Sir  Herbert,  252 
Tristan  und  Isolde,  396 
Triumph  of  the  Philistines,  The,  236 
Trots    Filles    de    M.    Dupont,  Les, 

233 

Trois  Maupin,  Les,  213 
Truth,  The,  364,  379 
Twelfth  Night,  89 


INDEX 


419 


Un  bienfait  n'estjamais  perdu,  17 
Underplot,  198,  199 
Under  which  King,  212 
Unities,  the  three,  123,  133,  136 
Unity  of  time,  133-135 


Vanbrugh,  382 

Verre  d'Eau,  Un,  213 

Vikings  at  Helgeland,  The,  99,  100 

"Voix  du  sang,"  349 

Voleur,  Le,  266 

Voles  for  Women,  20 

Voysey  Inheritance,  The,  281,  329 

W 

Walkley,  A.  B.,  24,  25 
WaUensteins  Lager,  19 
Ward,  Mrs.  Humphry,  242 
War-God,  The,  397 
Waste,  116,  126,  127,  140,  281,  360 
Way  of  the  World,  The,  16,  388 
Way  the  Money  Goes,  The,  49,  238 
Weber,  Die,  19,  190 
Webster,  386 


Wedekind,  379 

"Well-made    play,"   the,   62,   213, 

267,  270,  283 

What  the  Public  Wants,  301 
Wheels  within  Wheels,  180,  284 
When  We  Dead  Awaken,  no 
White  Knight,  The,  289 
"White  marriage"  theme,  344 
Whitewashing  Julia,  311 
Wild  Duck,  The,  54,  68,  102,  108, 

231,  257,  356,  377 
Wilde,  Oscar,  113,  138, 177,  196,  300, 

307,  308,  350,  385,  388 
Will  against  will,  32 
Will  and  chance,  243 
Wills,  W.  G.,  277 
Winter's  Tale,  The,  32,  90 
Wisdom  of  the  Wise,  The,  389 
Woman  of  no  Importance,  .4,  385 
Worst  Woman  in  London,  The,  176 


You  Never  Can  Tell,  294 


Zangwill,  Israel,  204,  397 
Zola,  66 


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